"Ali Higg's Brains Live in a Black Tent!" I hate to have to admit that there was any virtue in Suliman, or anything other than vice in his new chum Abdullah.

The two little devils stole my cigarettes, and deviled me unmercifully about my disguise, making improper jokes, at which Ali Baba and his sons laughed uproariously, and which they recalled at intervals for days afterwards.
But almost immediately after the "lady Ayisha" had left the governorate I was forced to admit that the brats were useful.

In their own way they served Grim as a pair of hounds work for a man out hunting rabbits, for they could penetrate places and be welcome where a grown man would be killed--at the very least--for intruding or attempting to intrude.

Harems, for instance.

And they could be naive and wheedling toward a woman when they chose.
They came in with their tongues hanging out like a pair of pups, and sticky with the awful stuff men sell for candy in the El-Kalil bazaars.