ong to the same lodge," and he was going to go inside and visit
the family, when the woman drew a small dagger out of the folds of her
dress, and the Turk drew one of these scimeters, and it looked for a
moment as though I was going to be a half orphan, particularly when
dad put his hand on her shoulder and petted it, and smiled one of those
masher smiles which he uses at home, and said: "My good woman, you must
not get in the habit of jabbing your husband's friends with this crooked
cutlery, though to be killed by so handsome a woman would indeed be a
sweet death," but the bluff did not go, and the woman disappeared behind
the curtain, and dad had the frantic husband to deal with.

[Illustration: When dad put his hand on her shoulder and petted it 276]

I have never seen a human being look as murderous as that Turk did as
he drew his thumb across the blade of his knife, drew up his lip and
snarled like a dog that has been bereaved of a promising bone by a
brother dog that was larger.

The Turk looked through his teeth, and his eyes seemed to act like small
arc lights, that were to show him where to cut dad, and dad began to
turn pale, and looked scared.

"Give him the grand hailing sign of distress," said I as dad leaned
against a barrel of dried prunes. Dad said he had forgotten the sign,
and then I told him the only way out of it, alive, would be to buy
something, so dad picked up a little jim-crack worth about ten cents,
and gave the Turk a five-dollar gold piece, and while the Turk went
in behind the curtain to get the change I told dad now was the time
to skip, and you ought to have seen dad make a sprint out the door and
around a corner, and up another street, while I followed him, and we
got away from the danger of being stabbed, but dad got his foot into it
again before we had gone a block.

Nobody in Constantinople ever hurries, or goes off a walk, so when the
people saw an old man, with a fez on his head, running amuck, as they
say here, followed by a beautiful boy, they began to crawl into their
holes, thinking dad was crazy, but when we were passing a sausage store,
where about 20 dogs were asleep in the street, and dad kicked half a
dozen dogs and yelled, "get out, you hounds," that settled it, and they
knew he was wrong in the head, and they yelled for the police, and we
were pulled for fast driving, and taken before a Turkish justice of the
peace, followed by the whole crowd.

[Illustration: Get ou