shoulders, but it was impossible
to disguise the fact from himself--Zobeide had certainly shrunk! And
within an hour all Damascus knew that Zobeide had shrunk. When Mr.
Feathercock went to the barber shop the Greek barber said to him, "Sir,
your turtle is no ordinary turtle!" When he went to call on Mrs.
Hollingshead, a lady who was always intensely interested in all
subjects that she failed to understand and who discussed them with a
beautiful freedom, she said to him: "Dear sir, your turtle. How
exciting it must be to watch it shrink! I am certainly coming to see it
myself." When he went to the Anglican Orphanage, all the little
Syrians, all the little Arabs, all the little Armenians, all the little
Jews, drew turtles in their copy-books, turtles of every size and every
description, the big ones walking behind the little ones, the tail of
each in the mouth of another, making an interminable line. And in the
street the donkey drivers, the water-carriers, the fishmongers, the
venders of broiled meats, of baked breads, of beans, of cream, all
cried: "Mister Turtle, Mister Turtle! Try our wares. Buy something for
your poor stubborn beast that is pining away!"

And, in truth, the turtle continued to shrink. She became again the
size of a soup plate, then of a dessert plate, then of a saucer, till
finally one morning there was nothing there but a little round thing,
tiny, frail, translucent, a spot about as big as a lady's watch, almost
invisible at the base of the fountain. And the next day--ah! the next
day there was nothing there, nothing whatever, neither turtle nor the
shadow of turtle, or more trace of a turtle than of an elephant in all
the grounds!

Mohammed-si-Koualdia had stopped taking hashish, because he was
saturated with it. But he remained all day long, huddled in a heap at
the door of the little cafe immediately opposite the clergyman's house,
his eyes enlarged out of all proportion, set in a face the color of
death, gave him the look of a veritable sorcerer. At this moment the
Rev. Mr. Feathercock was returning from a visit to the English consul
who had said to him coldly:

"All that I can tell you is that you have made an ass of yourself or,
as a Frenchman would say, played the donkey to hear yourself bray. The
best thing you can do is to go and hunt up a congregation somewhere
else."

The Rev. John Feathercock accepted the advice with deference, and took
the train for Bayreuth. That same evening Moha