ARCHAG'S FIRST TROUSERS
For several weeks the boys talked of nothing but the arrival of
Monsieur Bernier, their future French teacher. One morning the
president received a telegram from Aleppo announcing the arrival
of the young man that same evening, and by way of doing him honor,
Dr. Mills gave all the classes a half-holiday. The Sophomores were
talking of their new professor:
"I wonder if he's young or old," said Samouil.
"You little fool," muttered Dikran, "you may depend upon it that no man
of experience would leave Europe to come out and bury himself in a hole
like this; I bet he's a greenhorn with just five hairs on his chin."
"I've seen his photograph," announced Aram, with the air of a judge
revealing a state secret.
A dozen voices cried out at once:
"What is he like? What is he like?"
Aram straightened up with an air of importance:
"This morning I was in the president's office to show him the pensum
he gave me yesterday; I was looking around at his books and his desk,
and there I stopped, as I noticed a photograph half hidden by a pile
of letters. I peeped, I stood an tiptoe, but couldn't manage to see
a thing. All at once Mrs. Mills called out, 'Dearie, come and get a
piece of cake.' Dearie didn't wait to be called twice. 'Wait here
for me a moment,' said he, 'some one is calling me,' and as soon
as he had closed the door I pounced on the photograph. It was the
picture of a nice, slender young man, and he had written at the top:
Henri Bernier. I had barely time to put it back before the president
came back."
The boys quite envied Aram for having seen the new master before his
arrival, and since they had the afternoon free they decided to go
out and meet him in a body. Aram was the only dissenter:
"Oh, no! I shan't go; I shall see him soon enough. I haven't time,
anyhow; Garabed and I are going to town with Archag to help him choose
a suit of clothes."
"Do you hear that?" whispered Dikran in his cousin's ear. "The young
savage is getting civilized; not a bad idea. He won't disgrace us all,
next time we are invited to the president's house."
Aram and his two friends went to ask Badvili Melikian for passes
(the boys were not allowed to leave the campus without a written
permission); then they went off whistling, on their way to the bazaar.
First they went into a haberdasher's shop to buy stiff collars and
a necktie.
The shopkeeper showed them a box containing a dozen cravats of every
color of the rainbow, and the three boys stood hesitating before
such magnificence. Aram recommended an apple-green tie and one of
cherry-red, by turns.
"The green one," he said, "is very distingué; but Dikran has a red
one that his brother brought home from Beyrout, and he's just stuck
on it. He declares you can't find anything like it here; it will be
an awful blow to him if you buy one."
Archag, a modern Paris, confronted by the beauties of the cravats,
underwent all the torments of indecision. Finally Garabed, who had
said nothing, jogged his elbow:
"If I were you, I should take this pale blue one, then you will be
wearing the Armenian color," and he pointed to a cravat of coarse
silk and cotton.
Before the beauty of this sky-blue tie, the charms of the two others
paled.
"It's that or none," said Archag to himself.
But unfortunately, the shopkeeper asked a mejidieh (ninety cents)
for it, a fabulous price for a necktie. The three boys simultaneously
uttered cries of indignation, and turned to leave the shop.
"Eh, lá, lá, Effendis, not so fast! How much do you offer me?" It
was now the shopkeeper's turn to be alarmed.
"Twelve piastres (fifty-three cents)," said Archag.
"Twelve piastres! you wish to ruin me then? A cravat that comes
straight from Vienna, and cost me three piastres duty! I will let
you have it for eighteen piastres."
Again a pretended exit of the shoppers.
Finally, after twenty minutes of haggling and excited talk, Archag got
his famous necktie for fifteen piastres, and our three friends left the
shop radiant, escorted by the merchant, cringing and bowing repeatedly.
"Good business!" he said to himself, as soon as their backs were
turned. "I have had that ugly old rag in the shop for two years,
and never expected to get rid of it at such a price."
The tailor's shop was only a few steps away. Archag, acting on his
friend's advice, bought a suit of serge. He tried it on at once, and
then looked at himself in a mirror, surveying with great satisfaction
his slender figure, his snow-white collar and blue cravat, and as
a finishing touch, a scarf-pin in the shape of a four-leaf clover,
the gift of his two friends. The merchant, his clerks, Garabed and
Aram all declared that the suit fitted him like a glove.
Archag, however, felt very much hampered by his trousers, which hit
against his legs at every step; his suspenders pulled, and his stiff
collar choked him, and he gave a sigh of envy as he looked at his
flannel robe lying on a chair. But he paid his bill of two pounds
and a half, took his zouboun on his arm, and went back to college
with his companions.
A party of students had gone out to meet Monsieur Bernier, and the
others were waiting for him on the campus. About fifteen minutes
after Archag and his friends had rejoined their mates, the sound
of a carriage was heard in the distance. "They are coming, they
are coming!" called a voice, and they all ran to the foot of the
hill. Dr. Mills and Dr. Spencer, on horseback, were at the head of
the party; the boys, a few of them on bicycles, the greater number
on donkeys or walking, were crowding about the araba, a peculiar
sort of Turkish carriage used by travelers in the interior of Asia
Minor. It is a wagon without springs, having a hood of gray cloth;
trunks are fastened on anywhere, underneath, or at the sides of
the vehicle. The traveler lies on a mattress; he has a basket of
provisions at hand, in which he is likely to forage very often, to
beguile the length of the journey. Consider, dear reader, that the
carriage-roads in Turkey are often little better than country lanes,
that it is sometimes necessary to drive across rivers and marshes,
or again, to follow rough, stony roads, and run the risk of being
attacked by brigands, and you will realize that a journey in an araba
is no pleasure trip. Monsieur Bernier had come from Alexandretta,
and had spent three days in his araba; he had been obliged to stay
each night at a khan, where he had been almost devoured by vermin;
it was therefore a great relief to him to find himself at last at
his journey's end.
As he got out of the araba he was hailed with shouts of welcome by
the boys:
"Hip, hip, hip, ra, ra, ra, hip ra ré, bomba, bomba, C. T. C. (Central
Turkey College)."
The boys of Aintab being students in an American institution, had
adopted the American college custom of having their own peculiar yell.
Monsieur Bernier had a passion for travel, and after pocketing his
university diploma, had set out for distant lands. He was very young,
so young that some of his own pupils, great bearded fellows of twenty,
looked older than he. He thanked the boys for their kind reception,
and then followed President Mills to the house in which he was to
live. For a long time he could hear from his room the "hip, hip, hip,
ra, ra, ra," shouted in his honor, and these expressions of welcome so
cheered him up that from that first evening he felt a warm attachment
for his pupils, which never altered.
That evening, the Sophomores were in their study-hall as usual,
in charge of Mihran hodja, but as they had had a holiday in the
afternoon, they were free to do as they pleased. Most of them were
reading. Archag, Aram, and two of the Urfali were playing chess. Archag
kept losing, and after a while gave up, tired of his bad luck.
"I've had enough of that," said he; "ask Samouil to take
my place." Samouil agreed; he was a good player, but he found a
formidable opponent in Aram, and the group soon became very much
excited. Archag watched them for a moment, then went off to chat with
Garabed in another corner of the room. Nejib was sitting near them,
absorbed in a book.
"Hi, there," said Archag, "what are you buried in so deep? You haven't
taken your eyes off your old book for the last hour."
He drew near without ceremony, and read out the title of the book at
the top of his voice: "The Arabian Nights!"
If a thunderbolt had fallen in the hall the boys could hardly have been
more startled; they knew how severe Dr. Mills was upon any who read
improper stories; and "The Arabian Nights" had a terrible reputation
at Aintab.
Profound silence followed Archag's imprudent words; the boys dared
not breathe a syllable. Mihran hodja turned pale, went to Nejib
and asked for his book. The boy handed it to him without a word,
but he was as white as a ghost. The master turned over the leaves,
hoping the book might prove to be an expurgated edition, put it in his
pocket with a sigh, and left the room. When he had closed the door,
Nejib flung himself upon Archag and gave him a vigorous box on the ear.
Our friend tripped him up, and when his opponent was on the floor,
punched his chest. The boys had hard work to separate them, for they
were both very angry.
"As if I knew 'The Arabian Nights' was a forbidden book!" said
Archag. "I simply asked him what he was reading. Don't be worried;
I shan't speak another word to him."
Nejib, for his part, insisted that Archag had done it on purpose,
that he was a spy and ought to be expelled from college.
Finally, peace was restored after a fashion. Archag's anger cooled
quickly, and he thought no more about the matter. But Nejib did not
forget. President Mills gave him a punishment of three days on bounds,
on bread and water, together with a very bad conduct mark, and also
wrote a letter of complaint to Dr. Rossinian. The young fellow, who
was quarrelsome by nature, then merely waited for an opportunity to
take his revenge.