iff, United States army helmet,
obtained, it will be remembered, at Fort Sidney, Nebraska, and worn on
the road ever since, saves my bump of veneration from actual contact with
the stick of number two; and finding me making only a passive resistance,
the valiant individual in the green kammerbund relaxes both the severity
of his scowl and his grip on my neck gear.

After this there is no use trying to keep them from invading my quarters,
and I deem it advisable to stand closely by the bicycle, humoring their
curiosity and getting along with them as peaceably as possible. The crowd
present is constantly augmented by new arrivals from without; at least
two thousand people are struggling, pushing and shouting, some coming
forward to invade my menzil, others endeavoring to escape from the crush.
While the rowdiest portion of the crowd struggle and push and shout in
the foreground of this remarkable scene, little knots of big-turbaned
mollahs and better-class citizens are laying their precious heads
together scheming against me in the rear. Now and then a messenger in the
semi-military garb of a farrash, pushes his way to the front and delivers
a message from these worthies, full of lies and deceit. From the top of
their shaved and turbaned heads to the soles of their slip-shod feet they
are filled with a pig-headed determination to accomplish their object of
seeing the bicycle ridden. They send me all sorts of messages, from one
of but ordinary improbability, saying that the Mustapha is outside and
wants me to come out and ride, to one altogether ridiculous in its wild
absurdity, promising me a present of two tomans.

Occasionally a dervish holds aloft the fantastic paraphernalia of his
profession, battles his way through the surging human surf, and with his
black, ferret-like eyes gleaming with unconscious ferocity through a
vision of unkempt hair, thrusts his cocoa-nut alms-receiver under my nose
and says, "Huk yah huk!" or "backsheesh!" Shouted at, gesticulated at,
intrigued against and solicited for alms all at the same time, and with
brain-turning persistency, the classic halls of Bedlam would, in
contrast, be a reposeful and calm retreat. Driven by my tormentors almost
to the desperate resolve of emptying my six-shooter among them, let the
result to myself be what it may, the sun of my persecutions has not
reached the meridian even yet. The officer who an hour ago
inconsiderately left me to my own resources, now retur