"Oh, la! sir; Mr. Levi is a very pitickler gentleman; he wouldn't for all he's worth."
Mr. Dingwell was holding the piece of damask curtain between his finger and thumb, and she fancied was sniffing at it gently.
"Very particular, but I'm more so. We, English, are the dirtiest dogs in the world. They ought to get the Turks to teach 'em to wash and be clean. I travelled in the East once, for a commercial house, and know something of them. Can you make coffee?"
"_Very_, mind. As strong as the devil it must be, and as clear as--as your conscience." He was getting out a tin case, as he spoke. "Here it is. I got it in--I forget the name--a great place, near one of your bridges. I suppose it's as good as any to be had in this place. Of course it isn't _all_ coffee. We must go to the _heathen_ for that; but if they haven't ground up toasted skeletons, or anything dirty in it, I'm content. I'm told you can't eat or drink a mouthful here without swallowing something you never bargained for. Everything is drugged. Look at our Caiquejees! You have no such men in your padded Horse-guards. And what do they live on? Why, a crust of brown bread and a melon, and now and then a dish of pilauf! But it's good--it's pure--it's what it calls itself. You d----d Christian cheats, you're an opprobrium to commerce and civilisation; you're the greatest oafs on earth, with all your police and spies. Why it's only to _will_ it, and you _don't_; you let it go on. We are assuredly a beastly people!"
"Heaven forbid! Milk, indeed! I tell you what, Mrs.--What's your name?--I tell you, if the Sultan had some of your great fellows--your grocers, and bakers, and dairymen, and brewers, egad!--out there, he'd have 'em on their ugly faces and bastinado their great feet into custard pudding! I've seen fellows--and devilish glad I _was_ to see it, I can tell you--screaming like stuck pigs, and their eyes starting out of their heads, and their feet like bags of black currant jelly, ha, ha, ha!--for a good deal less. Now, you see, ma'am, I have high notions of honesty; and this tin case I'm going to give you will give me three small cups of coffee, as strong as I've described, six times over; do you understand?--six times three, eighteen; _eighteen_ small cups of coffee; and don't let those pretty little foxes' cubs down stairs meddle with it. Tell 'em I know what I'm about, and they'd better not, ha, ha, ha! nor with anything that belongs to me, to the value of a single piastre."