“Please,” said Remal. He made a very French gesture of self-deprecation and smiled. “I’ll have something else. Where is your man?”

“Couldn’t find him. Disappeared. Captain, you might fix me a Christian-type cocktail.”

Remal left the room and went out to the landing and then the two men in the bedroom could hear him roar. “What was that?” and the captain stopped mixing.

“It’s a kind of Arabic which a European can never learn,” said the clerk.

When Remal came back he brought a chair along from the other room, flounced the long skirt of the shirt-like thing he was wearing, doing this in the only way a long, shirt-like thing can be handled, and sat down.

“Ah, Whitfield,” he said. “How relaxing to see you.”

“Stop flattering me. I will not give you the bathtub.”

An irreverent way, thought the captain, for a thin, naked man to talk to a big one like this mayor, but the light talk went on for a while longer while the captain sat in the valley of the bed and wondered what Remal wanted. Perhaps five minutes after the roar on the landing the clerk’s Arab came running into the room with a tray. It held a pot and a cup and the tea smelled like flowers. After everything had been put on the dresser, the clerk’s Arab ran out again very quickly because Remal had waved at him. Then Remal poured and everyone waited.

“That was a remarkable coffin,” he said when he was ready. “I looked the entire thing over with interest.”

“Custom-made,” said the clerk.

“It would have to be,” said Remal. “Few people would want such a thing.”

“About the man,” said the captain. “You wanted us to discuss…”

“Dear captain,” said the clerk. “Our mayor is being polite by not coming to the point. You were saying, Remal?”

“Yes, yes. This coffin had everything.”

“I don’t think so,” said the captain. “Not by the smell of it.”

“Perhaps,” said Remal, and drank tea. “But I was thinking, to lie in your own offal does have a Biblical significance, doesn’t it?”