ning, I should be
relating a story of giddy madness and intoxication. I taught them in
return the game of "hunt the slipper;" you know it, don't you? We played
it as follows: there was a ribbon knotted at both ends, which we held,
sitting on the floor in a circle, and on which slips a ring, which one
of the players must seize in his hands. This, upon my word, finished me
up. What laughter, and what merry cries! Each of them, caught in her
turn, chose me of course as her mark. Every moment I found myself seized
and held prisoner in their naked, snowy arms. Upon my soul, it was
maddening!

It was nearly midnight when His Excellency returned. I had lost all
reckoning of the time; now I felt I must really make off. While I was
getting ready and saying a few words to Kondje-Gul, Mohammed Azis spoke
to Zouhra, Nazli, and Hadidje. I fancied that he was questioning them,
and that they replied in the negative. Then he spoke at greater length
to Kondje-Gul; he appeared to me to be pressing her to give him an
account of my conversation with her, and that the result did not please
him. I was annoyed with myself at the thought that, maybe, I had been
the cause of her being reprimanded. At last he certainly ordered them to
retire, for they came to me, one after the other, and each of them, as
on entering, bowed to me in a respectful manner, saluting me with her
hand to her forehead, and kissed my hand; after this they went out,
leaving me in a frame of mind disordered beyond description.

I was just about to offer some apologies to Mahommed, and make my peace
with him before I left (for I feared that he might for the future place
obstacles in the way of similar evening performances), when he said to
me, with an anxious air, in that dialect of his which I translate, in
order to avoid reproducing the scene of the _mamamouchis_ in the
"Bourgeois Gentilhomme:"

"May I be allowed to hope that your lordship is satisfied?"

"Satisfied, Your Excellency?" I exclaimed, affectionately grasping his
hands; "why, I am delighted! You could not give me greater pleasure in
this world than by treating me exactly as you treated my uncle."

"The young ladies, then, did not displease your lordship?"

"Your daughters? Why, they are adorable! My only fear is lest I should
not find them reciprocate the sentiments which they inspire in me."

"Ah! Then it is not because your lordship is displeased that you will
not remain here to-night?" added he, with