"Well, I know it isn't, because I read about it in a story in a magazine. And they were eating it. On the terrace.... What is that shish kibub?"
"Kebab.... It's lamb roasted on skewers. I know you'll like it."
"Well, I'm not going to trust any heathens to cook my meat. I'll take some eggs and some of that--what was it the idiot was talking about--berma?"
"Bourma.... That's awful nice. With honey. And do try some of the stuffed peppers and rice."
"All right," said Theresa, gloomily.
Somehow Mr. Wrenn wasn't vastly transformed even by the possession of the two thousand dollars her mother had reported. He was still "funny and sort of scary," not like the overpowering Southern gentlemen she supposed she remembered. Also, she was hungry. She listened with stolid glumness to Mr. Wrenn's observation that that was "an awful big hat the lady with the funny guy had on."
He was chilled into quietness till Papa Gouroff, the owner of the restaurant, arrived from above-stairs. Papa Gouroff was a Russian Jew who had been a police spy in Poland and a hotel proprietor in Mogador, where he called himself Turkish and married a renegade Armenian. He had a nose like a sickle and a neck like a blue-gum nigger. He hoped that the place would degenerate into a Bohemian restaurant where liberal clergymen would think they were slumming, and barbers would think they were entering society, so he always wore a fez and talked bad Arabic. He was local color, atmosphere, Bohemian flavor. Mr. Wrenn murmured to Theresa: "Say, do you see that man? He's Signor Gouroff, the owner. I've talked to him a lot of times. Ain't he great! Golly! look at that beak of his. Don't he make you think of kiosks and hyrems and stuff? Gee! What does he make you think--"
"He's got on a dirty collar.... That waiter's awful slow.... Would you please be so kind and pour me another glass of water?"
But when she reached the honied bourma she grew tolerant toward Mr. Wrenn. She had two cups of cocoa and felt fat about the eyes and affectionate. She had mentioned that there were good shows in town. Now she resumed: "Have you been to `The Gold Brick' yet?"
"No, I--uh--I don't go to the theater much."
"Gwendolyn Muzzy was telling me that this was the funniest show she'd ever seen. Tells how two confidence men fooled one of those terrible little jay towns. Shows all the funny people, you know, like they have in jay towns.... I wish I could go to it, but of course I have to help out the folks at home, so-- Well.... Oh dear."