SHEIK ALI BEN SALIM 29 



build the bodies on my two Rugby chassis. After 

 much dickering over the price and much explaining 

 of what I wanted, the deal had been set and oper- 

 ations were supposed to start the next morning. The 

 next day I was busy and did not get around to the 

 shop, which in this case was the shade furnished by a 

 large pepper tree. On the following morning when 

 I arrived on the scene and found that nothing had been 

 started, I was plenty mad. Ramji was not a bit per- 

 turbed; he simply smiled and shrugging his shoulders 

 said, *'It is the will of Allah" that the beams for the 

 chassis had not been dehvered. 



After two or three days of dilly-dallying by Ramji, 

 I had my boy bring a comfortable chair and took up 

 a station near the shop, where I spent most of my time 

 supervising the job. It was well that I did, for by 

 insisting upon large nails where they intended to put 

 smaU ones and upon angle irons where they were 

 needed, I was able to save myself a lot of grief later on. 

 As it was, the finished product was anything but beau- 

 tiful; however, the bodies did hold together during 

 our trying journey, which is more than they would 

 have done otherwise. 



Ramji was always finding new reasons to add on a 

 few shilHngs, but I made him stick to the original 

 agreement, in spite of his constant crying that he was 

 losing money. He had four cai'penters working on 

 these bodies whom he paid two dollars a day for ten 

 hours of work. Then there was the toto who did the 

 odd jobs for the magnificent sum of twenty-five cents 

 a day. I'm afraid that Ramji was like a lot of others 

 in East Africa. He thought that every American was 

 fit game with no closed seasons. 



