the crowd the action of the pedals and the modus operandi of
things in general. The officer evidently regards me as the merest dummy,
unable to speak or comprehend a word of the language, or help myself in
any way--the result, it is presumed, of some explanation to that effect in
the letter--and he stalks about with the proud bearing and
self-conscious expression of a showman catering successfully to an
appreciative and applauding populace.

The accommodation provided at the caravanserai consists of doorless
menzils, elevated three feet above the ground; a walled partition, with
an open archway, divides the quarters into a room behind and an open
porch in front. Conducting me to one of these free-for-anybody places,
which I could just as easily have found and occupied without his
assistance, he takes his departure, leaving me to the tender
consideration of an overbearing, ragamuffin mob, in whom the spirit of
wantonness is already aroused.

I attempt to appeal to the reason of my obstreperous audience by standing
on the menzil front and delivering a harangue in such Persian as I have
at command.

"Sowar shuk, neis, tomasha, caravanserai neis rah koob neis. Inshalla
saba, gitti koob rah Beerjandi, khylie koob lomasha-kh-y-l-ie koob
tomasha saba," is the burden of this harangue; but eloquent though it be
in its simplicity, it fails to accomplish the desired end. Their reply to
it all takes the form of howls of disapproval, and the importunities to
ride become more clamorous than ever.

An effort to keep them from taking possession of my quarters by shoving
them off the front porch, results in my being seized roughly by the
throat by one determined assailant and cracked on the head with a stick
by another. Ignorant of a Ferenghi's mode of attack, the presumptuous
individual, with his hand twisted in my neck-handkerchief, cocks his head
in a semi-sidewise attitude, in splendid position to be dropped like a
pole-axed steer by a neat tap on the temple. He wears the green
kammerbund of a seyud, however; and even under the shadow of the
legations in Teheran, it is a very serious and risky thing to strike a
descendant of the Prophet. For a lone infidel to do so in the presence of
two thousand Mussulman fanatics, already imbued with the spirit of
wantonness, would be little less than deliberate suicide, so a sense of
discretion intervenes to spare him the humiliation of being knocked out
of time by an unhallowed fist. The st