to be
of much consequence. Soon after arriving at this conclusion, Mr. Gray's
farrash, an Armenian he brought with him from Ispahan, comes in with a
message that another Shahzedah has succeeded in getting past the guard
and sends in his salaams. "Shahzedah be d----d! Turn him out--put him
outside, and tell the guards to let nobody else in without our
permission!"

A moment later the farrash re-enters with the look of a man scarcely able
to control his risibilities, and says the man and his friends are still
inside the gate.

"Why the devil don't you put them out, as you are told, then?"

"He says he is the Padishah's step-father."

"Well, what if he is the Padishah's step-father? It's nothing to be the
Shah's step-father; the Shah probably has five hundred step-father's, to
say the least--turn him out. No; hold hard; let him stay."

We conclude that a step-father to the king, whether genuine or only a
counterfeit, is at least something of a relief after the swarms of
nephews, cousins, and uncles, and so order him to be shown in He proves
to be a corpulent little man about sixty, who advances up the bricked
walk toward us, making about three extra profound salaams to the rod and
smiling in a curious, apprehensive manner, as though not quite assured of
his reception. About a dozen long-robed mollahs and seyuds follow with
timid hesitancy in his wake. Strange to say, he makes no allusion to his
illustrious step-son, the King of Kings at Teheran; and plainly betrays
embarrassment when Gray mentions the fact of my having appeared before
him on the wheel. We conclude that the Shah's step-father and the little
group of holy men clubbed together and paid the Persian guard about a
keran to let them in, and perhaps another half-keran to the Armenian
farrash for not summarily turning them out. He tries very hard, however,
to make himself agreeable, and when told about the Russians refusing me
the road, exclaims artfully: "I was not an enemy of the Russians before I
heard this, but now I am their worst enemy! Suppose the Sahib's iron
horse was a wheel of fire, what harm would it do their country even
then?"

Our most distinguished caller to-day is Mirza Abbas Khan, C. I. E., a
Kandahari gentleman, who has been the British political agent at Meshed
for many years. He makes a formal call in all the glory of his official
garments, a magnificent Cashmere coat lined with Russian sable and
profusely trimmed with gold braid; a serv