ons to recline upon, I smoked my pipe and sipped
my coffee like one of the highest degree.

Implicated as I had been in disagreeable adventures in Persia, I was
mistrustful of my own countrymen, and rather shunned them, whilst I
sought the acquaintance of the Turks. But they, my countrymen, who are
always so inquisitive, and who feel themselves slighted upon the least
inattention--they discovered who and what I was, and eyed me with no
great feelings of approbation. However, I endeavoured to live upon good
terms with them; and as long as we did not enter into competition in
matters of trade, they left me unmolested.

In places of public resort I gave myself out for a rich Bagdad merchant;
and now my scar, which I had before esteemed a great misfortune, was
conveniently conspicuous to attest the truth of my assertions. Nothing,
I found, was so easy as to deceive the Turks by outward appearance.
Their taciturnity, the dignity and composure of their manner and
deportment, their slow walk, their set phrases, were all so easy to
acquire, that in the course of a very short time I managed to imitate
them so well, that I could at pleasure make myself one of the dullest
and most solemn of their species. So perfect a hearer had I become,
so well did I sigh out, every now and then, in soft accents, my sacred
ejaculations of 'Allah! and there is but one Allah!' and so steady was
I in counting my beads, that I was received at the coffee-house, which
I frequented, with distinguished attention. The owner of it himself made
my coffee, and as he poured it out with a high flourish of his arm,
he never failed to welcome me by the friendly epithets of 'my aga, my
sultan.' Such influence had the respectability of my appearance secured
for me, that in every trifling dispute which might take place in the
coffee-room, either upon the subjects of horses, dogs, arms, or tobacco
(the principal topics of conversation), I was ever referred to, and any
low growl from my lips, of either _belli_ (yes), or _yok_ (no), was sure
to set the matter at rest.

[Illustration: Shekerleb approaches Hajji. 36.jpg]

CHAPTER LXVII

Hajji Baba makes a conquest of the widow of an emir, which at first
alarms, but afterwards elates him.

I had lived in this manner for some time, when for three successive
evenings, towards the dusk, retiring from my coffee-house, I remarked an
old woman standing at the corner of a small street that nearly faced it.
She a