The Bad Boy and His Dad Meet the Cream of the Harem--“Little
Egypt” Does a Dancing Stunt--The Sultan Wants to Send Fifty
Wives to the President.
Constantinople, Turkey.--My Dear Grocer-pasha: When I wrote you last
I thought you would be in mourning for dad and I before this, as there
seemed nothing for the Turks to do but to kill us after we had stampeded
the sultan and all his soldiers by giving them a university yell, but
after we had been confined in a sort of jail over night, dad and I had
a heart to heart talk, and my diplomacy saved us for the time being.
I told dad that what we wanted to do was to tell the Turks that dad
represented the American people, and had a communication to make to the
sultan personally, which would make him rich and happy.
Well, say, they bit like a bass, and the next day they took us before
the sultan at the palace. Dad dug up a package of blank gold mining
stock in a mine that he was going to promote, though the mine was only a
small hole in the ground, and the stock had been offered for one cent a
share, the par value being a hundred dollars, so a man who got a share
for a cent would, when the mine got to paying, get a hundred dollars for
every cent he invested.
Dad filled out one of the stock certificates for 1,000,000 shares, which
would represent a capital equal to all the debts of Turkey, and we went
before the sultan, and we couldn't have been treated better if we
had owned a brewery. Dad told his story to the sultan through an
interpreter, while I looked around at the gorgeous surroundings and
tried to think of something to do to wake them up.
Dad said he came right fresh from the American people, and was
authorized by his mining company to present the sultan with untold
millions, for pure love of the Turkish people, whom they had seen riding
and leading camels at the Chicago world's fair, and dad produced the
stock certificate for 1,000,000 shares of stock in the Golden Horn Gold
Mining and Smelting company, and took out a handful of $20 gold pieces
and showed them to the crowd as specimens of gold that came from our
mine.
He said our people did not expect anything in return, but just desired
the good will of the Turkish empire. He said that President Roosevelt
desired him to present his warmest regards to the sultan, and to invite
him to visit America, and if he would consent to do so, an American war
vessel would be furnished for him and the white house would be turned
over to him for his harem, and dad said the president wanted him
particularly to impress upon the sultan that if he came he must bring
his folks, all his wives that would be apt to size up for beauty with
our American women.
[Illustration: He must bring his folks, and all his wives 289]
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 this dancer waltzed up to dad and
wiggled in a foreign language, dad sashayed up to her and I couldn't
hold him back.
[Illustration: He was just getting warmed up 293]
He was just getting warmed up to “balance to partners,” when a frown
came over the sultan's face and he looked cross at dad, and then the
hewgag sounded, and the girls scattered out of a side door and dad
wanted to follow, but I held him by the coat, and it was over. I
think those girls were the only ones in the whole harem that were good
looking.
Dad breathed hard a little from his exercise, and said he was ready to
inspect the stock, and the sultan detailed a tall negro, with a face
dried up like a mummy, and we started out through the harem, dad pulling
the long hair on the side of his head over his bald spot, and throwing
his shoulders back and drawing in his stomach to make him look young.
Well, say, there is nothing about a harem, much different from keeping
house at home, except that there is more of it. The idea people get of
harems is that the women are all young and beautiful, and that they sit
around a swimming tank and play guitars and keep the flies off the man
who owns the place, while he smokes the vile Turkish tobacco burning in
a jardiniere, through a section of rubber hose, and goes to sleep like
a Chinaman smoking opium, and that they drink rare wines and dance with
bangles on their legs and ropes of pearls on their necks and arms.
I have seen alleged imitations of a Turkish harem on the stage, with
American girls doing the acting, and it would make you feel as though
you would invest in a harem when you got old enough, but, gee, when you
see a regular harem, run by an up-to-date Turk, you think of the Mormon
apostle who has 40 wives of all ages, from 70 down to a 16-year-old
hired girl, with a hair-lip and warts on her thumbs. This harem was like
a big stock barn in the states, with a big room to exercise the colts,
and box stalls for the different wives and their families to live in and
do their own cooking and washing.
Instead of sitting by a bath playing a harp, the poor old wives stand by
a washtub and play tunes on the washboard, and scrub, and take care
of children. I thought the custom of spanking children was an American
institution, but it is as old as the ages, for I saw a Turkish mother
grab up a child that had lifted a kitten by the tail, and take it across
her knee and give it a few with a red hand covered with soapsuds, and
the young Turk yelled bloody murder, just like an American kid, and then
sat down on its knees, so the spanking wouldn't hurt, and called its
mother names in a language I couldn't understand, but I knew what the
child said, by instinct. Dad started to interfere, because he is a
member of the humane society, but the unique that was showing us around
saved dad's life by pushing him along, before the woman got a chance to
brain him with the washboard.
The women mostly had on these baggy Turkish trousers, like the Zouaves
wear, and a jacket, and a cloth around their heads, and they acted as
though if the next meal came along all right they would be in luck. We
saw a few women pretty white, and they were Circassian slaves, with big
eyes and hoops in their ears, and a little different clothes on, but
there were none that dad would buy at an auction, or at a bargain sale,
if they were marked down to 99 cents.
We passed one woman running an American sewing machine, and dad said
he'd bet she was an American, and he went up to her and said: “Hello,
sis!” She stopped the machine, looked up at dad with a sort of Bowery
expression, and said: “Gwan, Chauncey Depew, you old peach, or I'll have
you pinched,” and the unique took dad by the arm and pulled him along
real spry, but he hung back and looked over his shoulder at the woman,
but she went on sewing, and dad said to me: “Well, wouldn't that frost
you?” And we went on making the inspection.
I don't think I ever saw so many children, outside of an orphan asylum,
all about the same size and all looking exactly alike. They all had the
same beady black eyes that look as though they were afraid of getting
caught in a trap, like muskrats, and their noses had the same inquiring
appearance, as though the owner was speculating as to how much money
the visitors had in their pockets, and whether it was fastened in. Race
suicide is impossible in Turkey, but a race of bandits is growing up
that will let no foreigners with a pocketbook escape.
It took us an hour to go through the harem, and it was more like going
through the quarters of the working women of a home laundry in the
tenement district of a large city, than a comic opera, as we had been
led to expect by what we had read of harems. When we went into the harem
I think dad was going to insist on having the women dance for him, while
he sat on a throne and threw kisses at the most beautiful women in all
the world, but before we had got around all the box stalls I think if
any of them had started to dance dad would have stampeded in a body.
We finally got back to the great marble room, where the sultan was
sleeping in a stuffed chair, surrounded by his staff, and one of them
woke him up, and he asked dad what he thought of the home life of a
crowned head, and dad said it beat anything he had ever seen, and he
should recommend to his government that the harem system be adopted in
America, and actually the sultan seemed pleased. He said as an evidence
of his love for America he wanted to present to the president, through
dad, 50 of his wives, and if dad would indicate where he wanted them
delivered, they would be there, Johnny on the spot, or words to that
effect.
At first I thought dad would faint away, but I whispered to him that it
would be discourteous to decline a present, after giving the sultan a
gold mine, and that may be the old man would be so mad, if he declined
the wives, that he would tie stones to our legs and sink us in the
Bosphor-ous, so dad rallied and said, on behalf of his government, he
would accept the kindly and thoughtful gift of his highness, and that he
would cable for a war vessel to take the wives to his own America, and
he would notify the sultan when to round them up and load them on the
vessel.
Well, sir, I do not know what possessed me to make a scene, before we
got out of the presence of the sultan, but it all came to me sudden,
like an inspiration comes to a poet. I had been eating some fruit that
I bought in a paper bag, and when I had eaten the last of it, I wondered
what I would do with the bag, and then I thought what fun it would be to
blow the bag up, and suddenly burst it, when all was still. So I blowed
up the bag, so it was as hard as a bladder, and tied a string around
the neck, and waited. I did not think how afraid everybody in these old
countries is of bombs, or I never would have done it, honestly.
The sultan was signing some papers, and looking out of the corners of
his eyes to see if anybody was present who was suspicious, and dad was
getting ready to make a salam, and back out of the presence of the ruler
of Turkey, when I got behind some of the officials who were watching the
sultan, and I laid my paper bag on the marble floor, and it was as still
as death, and all you could hear was the scratching of the pen, when I
jumped up in the air as though I had a fit, and yelled “Allah,” and came
down with my whole weight on the paper bag, and of all the stampedes you
ever saw, that was the worst.
[Illustration: Stampede 299]
You know what a noise it makes to bust a paper bag. Well, this was the
toughest old bag I ever busted, and it sounded like a cannon fired down
cellar somewhere, and the air was full of dust, and before I could get
up the sultan had tipped over the table and run yelling into another
room, praying to “Allah,” and all the staff had lit out for tall timber,
and there was nobody left but dad and the unique and myself, and the
unique took dad by the arm and started for the door, and we were fired
out.
As I went out of the room I looked around, and there was a Turk's head
sticking out of every door to see how many had been killed by the bomb,
and as we got out doors, dad said “Now we have to get out of Turkey
before night, or we die. Me for Egypt, boy, if we can catch a boat
before we are drawn and quartered.” So here goes for Cairo, Egypt.
Yours only,
Hennery.