Well, you ought to have seen that sickly looking sultan brace up when
dad handed him the millions of mining stock, and he grabbed the paper
like an old clothes buyer would grab a dress suit that a wife had sold
for 60 cents, belonging to her husband. He also wanted to see the gold
that dad had shown as coming from the mine, and when dad showed him the
yellow boys he took them as souvenirs and put them in his girdle, and
then I thought dad would faint, but he kept his nerve like a poker
player betting on a bobtail flush.

The sultan asked so many questions about America that I was afraid dad
would get all balled up, but he kept his nerve, and lied as though he
was on the witness stand trying to save his life. Dad told the sultan he
was authorized by the American people to inquire into the industries of
Turkey, and what he particularly desired was an insight into the harems,
as a national institution, because many American people were gradually
adopting the customs of the orient, and he desired to report to congress
as to whether we should adopt the customs of Turkey with her dried
prunes and dates with worms in, and her attar of roses made of pig's
lard; her fez, to cure baldness, and her outlandish pants and peaked red
Morocco shoes, and her harems.

The sultan said he would like to show us a little bunch of the cream of
the harem, who would do a stunt in the way of dancing, to celebrate the
good feeling of the American people, and the visit of the distinguished
statesman and gold miner to his realm, and dad said the sultan couldn't
turn his stomach with no cream of the harem, only they must keep
their hands off him, and the sultan promised he should be as safe as a
"unique," whatever that is.

Dad and I had hired knee breeches and things of a masquerade ball store,
and we didn't look half bad when the crowd of shieks and things formed a
crescent around the sultan, who sat in a sort of barber's chair with
an awning over it, and they sounded a hewgag or something, and about
a dozen pretty fine looking females, dressed like the ballet in a
vaudeville show, came in and began to dance before the sultan.

Dad stood it first rate until a girl got on the carpet barefooted and
began one of those willowy sort of dances that nearly broke up the
Chicago fair, when people left the buildings filled with the work of the
world's artists, in all lines of progress, and went to the Midway in a
body to see "Little Egypt," but when thi