ove all, the airs of
grandeur and protection which you took upon yourself, was more than they
could allow, and they immediately rose in hostility, and determined to
bring you down to their own level again, if possible. Evidently, it is
they who have whispered into the ear of your wife's brothers that you
were not a Bagdad merchant, but only the son of an Ispahan barber, and
a sorry vender of little wares. They, doubtless, soon undeceived them
respecting the possibility of fulfilling the stipulations to which you
have bound yourself in your wife's marriage contract; and they, it is
plain, have commented freely upon your pretensions to noble birth, and
upon the flourishing account which you gave of your mercantile concerns,
of your transactions in Bokhara, and of your ships sailing to China. Had
you first visited me in a quiet way, as Hajji Baba, the Ispahani, and
not as Hajji Baba, the Turkish Aga, I would have warned you against
making an undue exhibition of yourself and your prosperity before your
countrymen; but the mischief was done as soon as the deed was over,
and now all that can be recommended is, that from the past you gain
experience for the future.' After this speech he took to his pipe again,
and puffed away with redoubled vigour.

'This may be very true,' said I. 'What is done, is done, and peace abide
with it: but, after all, I am a Mussulman, and justice is due to me as
well as to another. I never heard of a woman putting away her husband,
although the contrary frequently happens; and it has not yet reached my
understanding why I should be the only true believer who is called
into the house, and thrust out of it again, in a manner that would even
disgrace a dog, merely because it suits a capricious woman one morning
to like, and the evening after to dislike, me. Cadies, mufties,
sheikh-el-islams, abound here as well as in other Mohamedan cities,
and why should I not have recourse to them? They are paid to administer
justice, and wherefore should they sit, with their hands across,
counting their beads, when such injustice as that, with which I have
been visited, is going about the land seeking for redress?'

'Are you mad, Hajji', rejoined the old man, 'to think of redress from
the widow and relations of one of the most powerful emirs of Islam, and
that, too, when she is supported by her brothers, two of the richest
merchants in Constantinople? Where have you lived all your lifetime, not
to know, that he wh