Jeremy had turned the trick for his own amusement as much as anything, although his natural vein of shrewdness probably suggested the idea.

Yussuf Dakmar, ready to believe all evil and no good of anyone, was convinced that he had to deal with a scatter- brained Arab who could be used for almost any purpose, and Jeremy's riotous bent for jumping from one thing to another fixed the delusion still more firmly.
But Lord, he had caught a Tartar! Outside at the end of the corridor, in full view, but out of earshot, of Narayan Singh, Yussuf Dakmar made a proposal to Jeremy that was almost perfect in its naive obliquity.
There was nothing original or even unusual about it, except the circumstances, time and place.

Green-goods men and blue-sky stock salesmen, race-course touts and sure-thing politicians get away with the same proposition in the U.S.every day of the week, and pocket millions by it.

Only, just as happens to all such gentry on occasion, Yussuf Dakmar had the wrong fish in his net.
He jerked his head toward where Narayan Singh sat stolid and sleepy- looking on a camp-stool with his curly black beard resting on the heel of one hand.
"Do you know that man ?" he asked.
"Wallah! How should I know him ?" Jeremy answered.

"He looks like a Hindu thinking of reincarnation.