inople one day to sit
next to Sir Mackenzie Wallace at a dinner party, and to get into talk
with him, and Sir Mackenzie went about everywhere the next day telling
everybody that Captain Sarrasin knew more about the inner life of Russia
than any other Englishman he had ever met. It was the same with Stanley
and Africa--the same with Lesseps and Egypt--the same with South America
and the late Emperor of Brazil, to whom Captain Sarrasin was presented
at Cannes. There was a story to the effect that he had lived for some
time among the Indian tribes of the Wild West--and Sarrasin had been
questioned on the subject, and only smiled, and said he had lived a
great many lives in his time--and people did not believe the story. But
it was certain that at the time when the Wild West Show first opened in
London, Oisin Sarrasin went to see it, and that Red Shirt, the fighting
chief of the Sioux nations, galloping round the barrier, happened to see
Sarrasin, suddenly wheeled his horse, and drew up and greeted Sarrasin
in the Sioux dialect, and hailed him as his dear old comrade, and talked
of past adventures, and that Sarrasin responded, and that they had for a
few minutes an eager conversation. It was certain, too, that Colonel
Cody (Buffalo Bill), noticing the conversation, brought his horse up to
the barrier, and, greeting Sarrasin with the friendly way of an old
comrade, said in a tone heard by all who were near, 'Why, Captain, you
don't come out our way in the West as often as you used to do.' Sarrasin
could talk various languages, and his incredulous friends sometimes laid
traps for him. They brought him into contact with Richard Burton, or
Professor Palmer, hoping in their merry moods to enjoy some disastrous
results. But Burton only said in the end, 'By Jupiter, what a knowledge
of Asiatic languages that fellow has!' And Palmer declared that Sarrasin
ought to be paid by the State to teach our British officers all the
dialects of some of the East Indian provinces. In a chance mood of
talkativeness, Sarrasin had mentioned the fact that he spoke modern
Greek. A good-natured friend invited him to a dinner party with M.
Gennadius, the Greek Minister in London, and presented him as one who
was understood to be acquainted with modern Greek. The two had much
conversation together after dinner was over, and great curiosity was
felt by the sceptical friends as to the result. M. Gennadius being
questioned, said, 'Oh, well, of course he spe