tted to the balls of the European
embassies are indebted to me for being shut up closer than ever. I
impressed upon these degenerate Orientals the disastrous results of such
a breach of propriety. I persuaded the Sultan Abdul Medjid to give up
the idea of introducing the guillotine into his empire. Without
flattering myself, I think I have done a great deal of good, and if
there were only a few more gay fellows like myself we should prevent
people from making guys of themselves--And what are you doing, my dear
Edgar?" "I am going to America, and I am waiting for the Ontario to get
up steam," "That's a good idea! You can become a savage and resuscitate
the last Mohican of Fenimore Cooper. I already see you, with a blue
turtle on your breast, eagle's feathers in your scalp, and moccasins
worked with porcupine quills. You will be very handsome; with your sad
air you will look as if you were weeping over your dead race. If I had
not been away for four years, I would accompany you, but I was in such a
hurry to put my affairs in order, that I have returned to France by way
of England, in order to avoid the quarantine. I will admit you to my
religion; you shall become my disciple; I preserve barbaric costumes,
you shall preserve savage costumes. It is not so handsome, but it is
more characteristic. There were some Indians on our steamer; I studied
them; they are the people to suit you. But, before your departure, we
will indulge in an Eastern orgie in the purest style." "My dear Granson,
I am not in a humor to take part in an orgie, even though it be an
Eastern orgie; I am desperately sad." "Very well; I see that you are;
some heart sorrow; you Occidentals are always in a state of torment
about some woman; which would never occur if they were all shut up; it
is dangerous to let such animals wander about. I am delighted that you
are so sad and melancholy. I can now prove to you the superior efficacy
of my exhilarating means. I found at Cairo, in the Teriaki Square,
opposite the hospital for the insane--wasn't it a profoundly
philosophical idea to establish in such a place dealers in
happiness?--an old scamp, dry as a papyrus of the time of Amenoteph,
shrivelled as the beards of the Pschent of the goddess Isis; this
cabalistic druggist possessed the true receipt for the preparation of
hashisch; besides, he seemed old enough to have gotten it direct from
the Old Man of the Mountain, if he were not himself the Prince of
Assassins w