Dad Wears His Masonic Fez in Constantinople--They Find the
Turks Sensitive on the Dog Question--A College Yell for the
Sultan Sends Him Into a Fit.
Constantinople, Turkey.--My Dear Old “Shriner”--We got out of Russia
just in time to keep from being arrested or blown up with a bomb. Dad
wanted to go to Moscow, because he saw a picture once of Moscow being
destroyed by fire by Napoleon, or somebody, and he wanted to see if they
had ever built the town up again, but I felt as though something serious
was going to, happen in that country if we didn't look out, and so I
persuaded dad to go to Turkey, and the day we started for Constantinople
we got the news that the Nihilists had thrown a bomb under the carriage
of the Grand Duke Sergius and blew him and the carriage into small
pieces not bigger than a slice of summer sausage, and they had to sweep
his remains up in a dustpan and bury them in a two-quart fruit jar.
Wouldn't that jar you?
When dad heard about that you couldn't have kept him in Russia on a bet,
and so we let the authorities have all the money we had, giving some to
each man who held us up, until we got out of the country, and then we
took the first long breath we had taken since we struck the Godforsaken
country of the czar. If the bombs hold out I do not think there will
be a quorum left in Russia in a year, either czars, dukes or anything
except peasants on the verge of starvation and workingmen who have not
the heart to work. I wouldn't take the whole of Russia as a gift, and
have to dodge bombs night and day.
Say, old man, you never dreamed that I knew all about you and dad
joining the Masons that time, but I watched you and dad giving each
other signs and grips, and whispering passwords into each other's ears,
in the grocery, nights, after you had locked up. I thought, at the time,
that you and dad were planning a burglary, but when you both went to the
lodge one night and stayed till near morning, and dad came home with a
red Turkish fez and told ma that you and he had joined the shrine, which
was the highest degree in Masonry, and you and he were nobles, and all
that rot, I was on to you bigger than a house, and you couldn't fool me
when you and dad winked at each other and talked about crossing the hot
sands of the desert.
Well, dad brought his red fez along, 'cause I think he expected he would
meet shriners all over the world, that he could borrow money of. When we
struck Constantinople and dad saw that every last one of the Turks wore
a red fez, he felt as though he had got among shriners, and he got his
fez out of his trunk and he wears it all the time.
Dad acts as familiar with the Turks here as though he owned a harem. We
go to the low streets, about as wide as a street car, where Turks are
selling things, with dad wearing his fez, and he begins to make motions
and give grand hailing signs of distress, and the Turks look at him
as though he had robbed a bank, and they charge enormous prices for
everything, and dad pays with a smile, thinking his brother Masons are
fairly giving things away. He looks upon all men who wear the fez as his
brothers, and they look at him as though he was crazy in the head.
The only trouble is that dad insists on talking to the women here
without an introduction, and a woman in Turkey had rather die than
have a Christian dog look at her. Dad was buying some wormy figs of a
merchant, who was seated on the floor of his shop, and giving him signs,
when a curtain behind the Turk was pulled one side and a woman with
beautiful eyes and her face covered with a veil, came out with a cup of
coffee for the Turk. Dad shook hands with her, and said: “Your husband
and I belong 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 out you hounds 282]
The justice did not wear a fez, but had on a turban, so dad did not give
him any signs, but after jabbering a while they sent for an interpreter,
who could talk pigeon English, and then dad had a trial, and I acted
as his lawyer. I told about how dad had tried to be kind and genial to
another man's wife, and how, in his hurry to get away from the murderous
husband he fell over a mess of dogs, and that he was a distinguished
American, who was in Turkey to negotiate a loan to the sultan.
Say, that fixed them, and they all made salams to dad, and bowed all
over themselves, and the justice of the peace prayed to Allah, and the
interpreter said we could go, but to be careful about touching a Turkish
woman or a dog, particularly a dog, as the Turks were very sensitive on
the dog question. So we went out of the courtroom and wandered around
the town, and you can bet that dad didn't look at any more women, though
they were everywhere with veils that covered their faces so nothing but
their eyes could be seen.
Gee, but you never saw such eyes as these Turkish women have. They are
big and black, and they go right through you, and clinch on the other
side. Dad says the facilities for getting into trouble are better in
Constantinople than any place we have been, as the men look like bandits
and the women look like executioners. Dad thanked me for helping him
out of that scrape by claiming he was the agent of a financial syndicate
that wanted to lend money to the sultan. If I had said dad was a
collecting agency, to make the sultan pay up, they would have sentenced
him to be boiled in oil.
Well, we thought we had been in trouble before, but we are in it now
worse than ever. We heard at the hotel that at 11 o'clock in the morning
the sultan would pass by in a carriage, with an escort, on the way to a
mosque, to pray to Allah, and everybody could see the sultan, so we got
a place on a balcony, and at the appointed time the procession came in
sight. It was imposing, but solemn, and the people on both sides of the
street acted like they do in America when the funeral of a great man is
passing. No man spoke, and all looked as though they expected, if they
moved, to be arrested and have a stone tied to their feet and thrown
into the Bosphorus, the way they kill one of the sultan's wives when she
flirts with a stranger.
We watched the soldiers, and finally the carriage of the sultan came,
and in it was a dried up man, with liver complaint, with a nose like an
eagle, and eyes like shoe buttons. He looked as though death would be
a relief, and yet he seemed afraid of it, and there was no sound of
welcome, such as there would be if Roosevelt was riding down Michigan
avenue at Chicago, on the way to the stockyards to pray to Armour,
instead of to Allah.
You could have heard a pin drop. I said: “Dad, this is too solemn, even
for a sultan. Let's give him the university yell, and show that mummy
that he has got two friends in Constantinople, anyway.” “Here she goes,”
says dad, and we leaned over the railing, just as the sultan's carriage
was right in front of us and not ten feet away, and in that oppressive
silence dad and I opened up, “U-Rah-Rah-Wis-Con-Sin, zip-boom-Ah!”
and then we started to sing, “There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town
To-Night.”
[Illustration: There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-Night 279]
Well, if any man in the crowd had touched off a bomb, there could have
been no greater consternation. The sultan turned pale, as pale as so
yellow a man could, and became faint, and fell over into the arms of a
general who sat beside him, the Bazi Bazouks on horseback began to ride
up and down the street, the crowd scattered, the sultan's carriage was
turned around and rushed back to the palace, with the ruler of Turkey
having a fit, and about a hundred soldiers came up on the veranda, where
dad and I had broke up the procession, and they lit on dad like buzzards
on a dead horse, and took possession of the hotel, and began to search
our baggage.
[Illustration: Another took me by the ear 285]
One Turk choked dad until his tongue hung out of his mouth, and another
took me by the ear and stretched it out so it was long as a mule's ear,
and they took us to a bastile and dad says it is all up with us now,
because they will drown us like a mess of kittens in a bag, and all
because we woke them up with a football yell in the wrong place.
Well, we might as well wind up our career here as anywhere. Good-by, old
man. You will see our obituary in the papers.
Your repentant,
Hennery.