he nature of his business.
Halid said he was the Imam who, in compliance with the verbal
instructions received from his Highness, had buried a stranger and
that he had come for payment. The Grand Vizier sent five gold pieces
(twenty piasters each) to the supposed Imam, and Halid made off as
fast as possible.

No sooner had Halid departed than the cloakless Imam arrived in
breathless haste, and explained that he was the Imam who had received
instructions from the Grand Vizier to bury a stranger, but that the
supposed corpse had disappeared, and so had his cloak and turban.
Witnesses proved this man to be the bona-fide Imam of the quarter, and
the Grand Vizier gave orders to his Chief Detective to capture, within
three days, on pain of death, and bring to the Sublime Porte, this
fearless evil-doer.

The Chief Detective was soon on the track of Halid; but the latter was
on the keen lookout. With the aid of the money he had received from
the Grand Vizier to defray his burial expenses he successfully evaded
the clutches of the Chief Detective, who was greatly put about at
being thus frustrated. On the second day he again got scent of Halid
and determined to follow him till an opportunity offered for his
capture. Halid knew that he was followed and divined the intentions of
his pursuer. As he was passing a pharmacy he noticed there several
young men, so he entered and explained in Jewish-Spanish (one of his
accomplishments) to the Jew druggist, as he handed him one of the gold
pieces he had received from the Grand Vizier, that his uncle, who
would come in presently, was not right in his mind; but that if the
druggist could manage to douche his head and back with cold water, he
would be all right for a week or two. No sooner did the Chief
Detective enter the shop than, at a word from the apothecary, the
young men seized him and, by means of a large squirt, they did their
utmost to effectively give him the salutary and cooling douche. The
more the detective protested, the more the apothecary consolingly
explained that the operation would soon be over and that he would feel
much better, and told of the numerous similar cases he had cured in a
like manner. The detective saw that it was useless to struggle, so he
abandoned himself to the treatment; and in the meantime Halid made
off. The Chief Detective was so disheartened that he went to the Grand
Vizier and asked him to behead him, as death was preferable to the
annoyance he