, this is wonderful! How came you to know aught of
Armenian?'

CHAPTER XLVII

New acquaintance--Wired cases--Bread and wine--Armenian colonies--Learning
without money--What a language--The tide--Your foible--Learning of the
Haiks--Old proverb--Pressing invitation.

Just as I was about to reply to the interrogation of my new-formed
acquaintance, a man with a dusky countenance, probably one of the
Lascars, or Mulattos, of whom the old woman had spoken, came up and
whispered to him, and with this man he presently departed, not however
before he had told me the place of his abode, and requested me to visit
him.

After the lapse of a few days, I called at the house which he had
indicated. It was situated in a dark and narrow street, in the heart of
the City, at no great distance from the Bank. I entered a counting-room,
in which a solitary clerk, with a foreign look, was writing. The
stranger was not at home; returning the next day, however, I met him at
the door as he was about to enter; he shook me warmly by the hand. 'I am
glad to see you,' said he, 'follow me, I was just thinking of you.' He
led me through the counting-room, to an apartment up a flight of stairs;
before ascending, however, he looked into the book in which the foreign-
visaged clerk was writing, and, seemingly not satisfied with the manner
in which he was executing his task, he gave him two or three cuffs,
telling him at the same time that he deserved crucifixion.

The apartment above stairs, to which he led me, was large, with three
windows, which opened upon the street. The walls were hung with wired
cases, apparently containing books. There was a table and two or three
chairs; but the principal article of furniture was a long sofa, extending
from the door by which we entered to the farther end of the apartment.
Seating himself upon the sofa, my new acquaintance motioned to me to sit
beside him, and then, looking me full in the face, repeated his former
inquiry. 'In the name of all that is wonderful, how came you to know
aught of my language?'

'There is nothing wonderful in that,' said I; 'we are at the commencement
of a philological age, every one studies languages; that is, every one
who is fit for nothing else; philology being the last resource of dulness
and ennui, I have got a little in advance of the throng, by mastering the
Armenian alphabet; but I foresee the time when every unmarriageable miss,
and desperate blockhead,