"Good morning, O my master; God bless thee!" exclaims the stall-keeper as his customer comes in sight.
Sáïd el Faráji has to buy cloth of the merchant time and time again, so makes a point of pleasing one who can return a kindness.
"No ill, praise God; and thyself, O Sáïd?" comes the cheery reply; then, after five minutes' mutual inquiry after one another's household, horses and other interests, health and general welfare, friend Sáïd points out the daintiest articles on his stall, and in the most persuasive of tones names his "lowest price."
All the while he is sitting cross-legged on an old box, with his scales before him.
"What? Now, come, I'll give you _so_ much," says the merchant, naming a price slightly less than that asked.
"Make it _so_ much," exclaims Sáïd, even more persuasively than before, as he "splits the difference."
"Well, I'll give you _so_ much," offering just a little less than this sum. "I can't go above that, you know."
"All right, but you always get the better of me, you know. That is just what I paid. Anyhow, don't forget that when I want a new cloak," and he proceeds to measure out the purchases, using as weights two or three bits of old iron, a small cannon-ball, some bullets, screws, coins, etc. "Go with prosperity, my friend; and may God bless thee!"
"And may God increase thy prosperity, and grant to thee a blessing!" rejoins the successful man, as he proceeds to another stall.
By the time he reaches home his basket will contain meat, fish, vegetables, fruit and herbs, besides, perhaps, a loaf of sugar, and a quarter of a pound of tea, with supplies of spices and some candles. Bread they make at home.
The absurdly minute quantities of what we should call "stores," which a man will purchase who could well afford to lay in a supply, seem very strange to the foreigner; but it is part of his domestic economy--or lack of that quality. He will not trust his wife with more than one day's supply at a time, and to weigh things out himself each morning would be trouble not to be dreamed of; besides which it would deprive him of the pleasure of all that bargaining, not to speak of the appetite-promoting stroll, and the opportunities for gossip with acquaintances which it affords. In consequence, wives and slaves are generally kept on short allowances, if these are granted at all.