than they
extended a cordial invitation to join them in their already established
bachelors' quarters, where four disconsolate halves of humanity were
already messing harmoniously together. With them I took up my quarters,
and, under the liberal and wholesome gastronomic arrangements of the
establishment, soon acquired my usual semi-embon-point condition, and
recovered from that gaunt, hungry appearance that the hardships and scant
fare of the journey from Constantinople had imparted. The house belonged
to Mr. North, and he managed to give me a little room to myself for
literary work, and, under the influence of a steady stream of letters and
papers from friends and well-wishers in England and America, that snug
little apartment, with a round, moon-like hole in the thick mud wall for
a window, soon acquired the den-like aspect that seems inseparable from
the occupation of distributing ink.

Three native servants cooked for us, waited on us, turned up missing when
wanted for anything particular, cheated us and each other, swore eternal
honesty and fidelity to our faces, called us infidel dogs and pedar sags
behind our backs, quarrelled daily among themselves over their modokal
(legitimate pickings and stealings--ten per cent, on everything
passing through their hands), and meekly bore with any abuse bestowed
gratuitously upon them, for an aggregate of one hundred and thirty kerans
a month--and, of course, their modokal. Some enterprising members of
the colony had formed themselves into a club, and imported a
billiard-table from England; this, also, was installed in Mr. North's
house, and it furnished the means for many an hour of pleasant diversion.
Like all Persian houses, the house was built around a square court-yard.
Mr. North had also a pair of small white bull-dogs, named, respectively,
"Crib" and "Swindle." The last-named animal furnished us with quite an
exciting episode one February evening. He had been acting rather
strangely for two or three days; we thought that one of the servants had
been giving him a dose of bhang in revenge for having worried his kitten,
and that he would soon recover; but on this particular day, when out for
a run with his owner, his strange behavior took the form of leaping
impulsively at Mr. North, and, with seemingly wild frolic, seizing and
shaking his garments. When Mr. North returned home he took the
precautionary measure of chaining him up in the yard. Shortly afterward,
I came in