Let’s Make a Deal

THE shop in the souk, or market, of Marrakesh mostly sold artifacts: Berber doors, Tuareg boxes, daggers, rifles with inlaid stocks. But on the wall in the back room hung an unusual rug: dark green, with glowing stripes that looked like news tickers in an unknown system of hieroglyphs. We had seen it the day before, and told the owner we liked it. Advantage, him.

An assistant took it off the wall, while he produced a second rug. Since this was not a rug store, we had not gone through the process of looking at fifty, keeping out only five or six, then focusing at last on two. Advantage, him.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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THE shop in the souk, or market, of Marrakesh mostly sold artifacts: Berber doors, Tuareg boxes, daggers, rifles with inlaid stocks. But on the wall in the back room hung an unusual rug: dark green, with glowing stripes that looked like news tickers in an unknown system of hieroglyphs. We had seen it the day before, and told the owner we liked it. Advantage, him.

An assistant took it off the wall, while he produced a second rug. Since this was not a rug store, we had not gone through the process of looking at fifty, keeping out only five or six, then focusing at last on two. Advantage, him.