ns with a large
party of friends, bent on seeing the same wonderful sight that has
seemingly set the whole city in an uproar. He has been about the place
collecting friends and acquaintances for the purpose of treating them to
an exhibition of my skill on the wheel. The purpose of the officer's
return, with his friends, is readily understood by the crowd, and his
arrival is announced by a universal roar of "Sowar shuk! tomasha!" as
though not one of this insatiable mob had yet seen me ride.

Appearing before the elevated porch of the menzil, he beckons me to "come
ahead" in quite an authoritative manner. The peculiar beckoning twist of
this presumptuous individual's chin and henna-stained beard summoning me
to come out and "perform" reminds me of nothing so much as some tamer of
wild animals ordering a trained baboon to spruce himself up and dance for
the edification of the circus-going public. Signifying my unwillingness
to be thus made a circus of over and over again, the officer beckons even
more peremptorily than before, and even makes a feint of coming and
fetching me out by force.

As may well be believed, the sum of my patience is no longer equal to the
strain, and jerking my revolver around from the obscurity of its
hiding-place at my hip to where it can plainly be seen, and laying a hand
menacingly on the butt, I warn him to clear off, in a manner that causes
him to wilt and turn pale. He leaves the caravanserai at once in high
dudgeon. It has been a most humiliating occasion for him, to fall so
ignobly from the very high horse on which he just entered with his bosom
friends; but it is no more than he rightly deserves.

Shortly after this little incident the part-proprietor of a tchai-khan
not far from the caravanserai, proposes that I leave my menzil and come
with him to his place. Happy in the prospect of any kind of a change that
will secure me a little peace, I readily agree to the proposal and at
once take my departure. A few stones are thrown, fortunately without
doing any damage, ere the tchai-khan is reached; but once inside, the
situation is materially improved.

It soon transpires that the speculative proprietors have conceived the
bright idea of utilizing me as an attraction to draw customers to their
place of business. Two men are stationed at the door with clubs, and
admittance is only granted to likely-looking people who have money to
spend on water-pipes and tea. A rival attraction already occ