He makes plans for the future, and is involved in a quarrel.
I determined to wait the arrival of the poet, and through his
interference to endeavour to get into some situation, where I might gain
my bread honestly, and acquire a chance of advancing myself in life,
without having recourse to the tricks and frauds which I had hitherto
practised: for I was tired of herding with the low and the vulgar; and
I saw so many instances before me of men rising in the world, and
acquiring both riches and honour, who had sprung from an origin quite
as obscure as my own, that I already anticipated my elevation, and even
settled in my own mind how I should act when I was a prime vizier.
Who, said I to myself, was the Shahs chief favourite, Ismael Beg
_tellai_, or the golden, but a _ferash_, or a tent pitcher? He is
neither handsomer nor better spoken than I; and if ever there should be
an opportunity of comparing our horsemanship, I think one who has been
brought up amongst the Turcomans would show him what riding is, in spite
of his reputation. Well; and the famous lord high treasurer, who fills
the kings coffers with gold, and who does not forget his own--who and
what was he? A barbers son is quite as good as a greengrocers, and, in
our respective cases, a great deal better too; for I can read and write,
whereas his excellency, as report says, can do neither. He eats and
drinks what he likes; he puts on a new coat every day; and after the
Shah, has the choice of all the beauties of Persia; and all this without
half my sense, or half my abilities: for to hear the world talk, one
must believe him to be little better than a _khûr be teshdeed_, i.e. a
doubly accented ass.
I continued wrapt up in these sort of meditations, seated with my back
against the wall of one of the crowded avenues which lead to the gate of
the royal palace, and had so worked up my imagination by the prospect of
my future greatness, that on rising to walk away, I instinctively pushed
the crowd from before me, as if such respect from them was due to one of
my lofty pretensions. Some stared at me, some abused me, and others
took me for a madman; and indeed when I came to myself, and looked at my
tattered clothes and my beggarly appearance, I could not help smiling
at their surprise, and at my folly; and straightway went into the cloth
bazaar in the determination of fitting myself out in decent apparel, as
the first step towards my change of life.
Making my way through the crowd, I was stopped by a violent quarrel
between three men, who were abusing each other with more than ordinary
violence. I pushed into the circle which surrounded them, and there, to
my dismay, discovered the courier, whom I had deceived, seconded by a
peasant, attacking the horse-dealer, whom they had just pulled off the
horse, which I had sold him.
That is my horse, said the peasant.
That is my saddle, said the courier.
They are mine, exclaimed the horse-dealer.
I immediately saw the danger in which I stood, and was about to slink
away, when I was perceived by the horse-dealer, who seized hold of my
girdle, and said, This is the man I bought the horse of. As soon as
I was recognized by the courier, immediately the whole brunt of the
quarrel, like a thunder-cloud, burst on my head, and I was almost
overwhelmed by its violence. Rascal, thief, cheat, were epithets which
were dinned into my ears without mercy.
Wheres my horse? cried one.
Give me my saddle, vociferated the other.
Return me my money, roared out the third.
Take him to the cadi, said the crowd.
In vain I bawled, swore, and bade defiance; in vain I was all smoothness
and conciliation: it was impossible for the first ten minutes to gain
a hearing: every one recited his griefs. The couriers rage was almost
ungovernable; the peasant complained of the injustice which had been
done him; and the horse-dealer called me every sort of name, for having
robbed him of his money. I first talked to the one, then coaxed the
other, and endeavoured to bully the third. To the courier I said, Why
are you so angry? there is your saddle safe and sound, you can ask no
more. To the peasant I exclaimed, You could not say more if your beast
had actually been killed; take him and walk away, and return thanks to
Allah that it is no worse. As for the horse-dealer, I inveighed
against him with all the bitterness of a man who had been cheated of
his property:--You have a right to talk indeed of having been deceived,
when to this moment you know that you have only paid me one-half of the
cost of the horse, and that you wanted to fob me off with a dying ass
for the other half.
I offered to return him the money; but this he refused: he insisted upon
my paying him the keep of the horse besides: upon which a new quarrel
ensued, in which arguments were used on both sides which convinced
neither party, and consequently we immediately adjourned to the _daroga_
or police magistrate, who, we agreed, should decide the question.
We found him at his post, at the cross streets in the bazaar, surrounded
by his officers, who, with their long sticks, were in readiness to
inflict the bastinado on the first offender. I opened the case, and
stated all the circumstances of it; insisting very strongly on the
evident intention to cheat me, which the horse-dealer had exhibited. The
horse-dealer answered me, and showed that as the horse did not belong to
him, it being stolen from another, he had no right to pay for its keep.
The question puzzled the daroga so much, that he declined interfering,
and was about ordering us to the tribunal of the cadi, when a decrepit
old man, a bystander, said, Why do you make so much difficulty about
a plain question? when the horse-dealer shall have paid the hajji the
remaining half of the price of the horse, then the hajji shall pay
for the keep of the beast, as long as it was in the horse-dealers
possession.
Every one cried _Barîk Allah! Barîk Allah!_ Praise be to God! and right
or wrong, they all appeared so struck by the specious justice of the
decision, that the daroga dismissed us, and told us to depart in peace.
I did not lose a moment in repaying to the horse-dealer the
purchase-money of the horse, and in getting from him a receipt in full:
it was only after he had settled with me that he began to ponder over
the merits of the decision, and seemed extremely puzzled to discover
why, if he was entitled to the horses keep at all, he was not entitled
to it, whether he had paid me half or the whole of the money? He seemed
to think, that he for once had been duped; and very luckily his rage
was averted from me to the daroga, who he very freely accused of being a
puzzle-headed fool, and one who had no more pretension to law than _he_
had to honesty.