from my customary evening walk, and, all unconscious of the
change in his behavior, went up to him; with a half-playful, half-savage
spring he seized the leg of my trousers, and, with an evidently
uncontrollable impulse, shook a piece clean out of it. He became
gradually worse as the evening wore away; the wild expression of his eyes
developed in an alarming manner; he would try to get at any person who
showed himself, and he made night hideous with the fearful barking howl
of a mad dog. Poor Swindle had gone mad; and I had had a narrow escape
from being bitten. We lassoed him from opposite directions and dragged
him outside and shot him. Swindle was a plucky little dog, and so was
Crib; one day they chased a vagrant cat up on to the roof; driven to
desperation, the cat made a wild leap down into the court-yard, a
distance of perhaps twenty feet; without a moment's hesitation, both dogs
sprang boldly after her, recking little of the distance to the ground and
the possibility of broken bones.

Sometimes the colony drives dull care and ennui away by indulging in
private theatricals; this winter they organized an amateur company,
called themselves the "Teheran Bulbuls," and, with burnt-corked faces and
grotesque attire, they rehearsed and perfected themselves in "Uncle
Ebenezer's Visit to New York," which, together with sundry duets, solos,
choruses, etc., they proposed to give, an entertainment for the benefit
of the poor of the city. When the Shah returned from Europe, he was moved
by what he had seen there to build a small theatre; the theatre was
built, but nothing is ever done with it. The Teheran Bulbuls applied for
its use to give their entertainment in, and the Shah was pleased to grant
their request. The mollahs raised objections; they said it would have a
tendency to corrupt the morals of the Persians. Once, twice, the
entertainment was postponed; but the Shah finally overruled the bigoted
priests' objections, and "Uncle Ebenezer's Visit to New York" was played
twice in Nasr-e-Deen's little gilded theatre a few days after I left,
with great success; the first night, before the Shah and his nobles and
the foreign ambassadors, and the second night before more common folk.
The two postponements and my early departure prevented me from being on
hand as prompter. The winter before, these dusky-faced "bul-buls" had
performed before a Teheran audience, and one who was a member at that
time tells an amusing story of the