Annabelle recognised the silver-leaved ironbarks, stunted and twisted in their growth, pale golden wattle in bloom, the dense scrub pressing to the verge of the road.

Why is its brim an object to be perpetually plucked and pinched with dubby fingers?

The adrenalin, though diminished, was still running through my veins; the red mist was lifting but my mind was fugged by this unfamiliar combination of hormones, slowly intermingling with indignity and contrition and the dawning of familiar, ignominious defeat.

“I am your servant,” said the other, “I am the servant of your family. You do not know me, but Mashallah! praises to Allah, it is a long while since I have known you. The air of Irân is filled with your renown; I am come from Mazanderan, and there by the beard of the shah I swear you are worshipped.”[…]The shah has vowed that you are to be the greatest man who sits in his gate: see, he gives to you in marriage the choicest maiden of Irân; that flower, of which others have not dared even to catch a distant scent, has been at once plucked and thrown into your bosom.