cares.

As for my father's house and furniture, notwithstanding my feelings at
the recent conduct of my mother, I determined, by way of acquiring
a good name (of which I was very much in want), to leave her in full
possession of them, reserving to myself the _temesouts_, or deeds, which
constituted me its lawful owner.

All being settled and agreed upon, I immediately proceeded to work. I
received five hundred piastres from the capiji for my shop; for he also
had been a great accumulator of his savings, and everybody allowed that
money was never laid out to better advantage, since the shop was sure
to enjoy a great run of business, owing to its excellent situation. I
therefore became worth in all about one hundred and ten tomauns in gold,
a coin into which I changed my silver, for the greater facility which
it gave me of carrying it about my person. Part of this I laid out
in clothes, and part in the purchase of a mule with its necessary
furniture. I gave the preference to a mule, because, after mature
deliberation, I had determined to abandon the character of a _sahib
shemshir_, or a man of the sword, in which, for the most part, I had
hitherto appeared in life, and adopt that of a _sahib calem_, or a man
of the pen, for which, after my misfortunes, and the trial which I had
in some measure made of it at Kom, I now felt a great predilection.

'It will not suit me, now, to be bestriding a horse,' said I to myself,
'armed, as I used to be, at all points, with sword by my side, pistols
in my girdle, and a carbine at my back. I will neither deeply indent my
cap, and place it on one side, as before, with my long curls dangling
behind my ears, but wind a shawl round it, which will give me a new
character; and, moreover, clip the curls, which will inform the world
that I have renounced it and its vanities. Instead of pistols, I will
stick a roll of papers in my girdle; and, in lieu of a cartouche-box,
sling a Koran across my person. Besides, I will neither walk on the tips
of my toes, nor twist about my body, nor screw up my waist, nor throw my
shoulders forward, nor swing my hands to and fro before me, nor in short
take upon myself any of the airs of a _kasheng_, of a beau, in which I
indulged when sub-deputy to the chief executioner. No; I will, for the
future, walk with my back bent, my head slouching, my eyes looking on
the ground, my hands stuck either in front of my girdle, or hanging
perpendicular down my sides, and