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“Noon came all too soon; and it was Thursday, the pay-day. Friday was the Moslem Sabbath, and these Englishmen were too Christian in their relations with their Moslem workers to make them labor on their chosen day. Our drive to Aintab was short, and so we delayed to see the men paid off, on Lawrence’s assurance that it would be interesting.

“A table was set in the open court of the ‘room,’ and Woolley handed out the piasters to the line of workers. That was simple, but the men had learned to bring their discoveries in on pay-days, and they received cash rewards for everything turned in. Of course, the result was exceeding care on their part to lose or break no fragment in their work; and in fact rare discoveries were sent in from all the country-side on these pay-days. The excavators would glance at the article offered. One man would receive a ten-piaster bonus for what he brought in, perhaps more to encourage him than because it had any real worth; another would have a fragment of pottery smilingly returned to him by the judge, while his companions laughed at him for trying to pass off on the alert Woolley part of a modern water-jar. Never did the Englishman say, ‘I can pay you nothing for this, but I will keep it just the same!’ It was either paid for or returned to the owner. Occasionally a gold coin, bright as the Arab’s eyes, would reward some happy man; but whether he got the gold or a laugh, never was the decision of his master and friend questioned.