One of the servants, walking up and down the table-cloth with brandy and relays of vegetables, was drunk very early in the game and had to be thrown out.
Abdul Ali kept conversation going on the subject of the raid.
The more the brandy bottles circulated the easier he found it to keep enthusiasm burning.

He talked about me, too, several times, and every time that subject cropped up all eyes turned in my direction.

I think he was making the most of the school idea, mixing up the raid with education and serving the mixture hot, as it were, with brandy sauce.
But over the way, about half-way down the table, the Ichwan Suliman ben Saoud, dead-cold-sober and abstemious, as befitted a fanatic, was talking, too.

He was quite evidently talking against Abdul Ali, so that the Damascene kept looking at him with a troubled expression.

He glanced frequently at the door, too, as if he expected some one who could put an end to Suliman ben Saoud's intrigue.
But it was a long time before the door opened and the second of his old-rose parasites came in.