I'm willing to pledge it not to hurt you or Ali Higg, provided you pledge yours to be equally friendly and to help me in taming Ali Higg so's he'll be useful and not just an ordinary trouble-maker." "Would you accept my word ?" she asked him--ready to consider him fool or liar, according to how he answered.
"I'll accept it, Jael.Sure.For you'll have to give it, and it's all you've got to trade with.

And I'll watch you just about twice as carefully as examiners watch the bank directors of New York State.
"Knowing you're watched, like them you're going to be too proud to cheat; and after you've found how it pays to play straight with me you're going almost to enjoy being watched for the sake of the advertisement." Her face did not soften in the least; but it changed expression, like a woman buyer's who has decided to make a purchase but has not done bargaining.
"I think I'm going to like you," she said.

"Of course, you're a liar, like all men, but you've a finer touch than most." At that point Ali Baba made his first contribution to the argument.

The old man did not know much English, but there are certain words--such as liar, cheat, swine, thief, and the list of oaths--that find their way like water to the common level and are known from Spitzbergen to the Horn.
"He is no liar!" he exclaimed in Arabic.

"A cunning man with the brain of three, who can use the truth for his own ends! A keeper of secrets! An upsetter of plans! But he is no liar, and I will not hear him called one by a woman! Peace, thou fool! It is written that a woman's tongue is worse than water dripping through a roof!" It is manners in that country to sit silent while an old man speaks, and even Jael Higg did not offer to rebuke him for the interruption.