household servants
and sent the luckless steward to his task.

After this pipes were refilled, fresh stories were told, and more songs
were sung. After a considerable time Mustapha returned with a large
sheet of paper covered with hieroglyphics. The man looked timid as he
approached and presented it to his master.

The Pasha seized the sheet. "What have we here?" he demanded sternly.

The man said it was portraits of the cocks and hens.

"Ha!" exclaimed the Pasha, "a portrait-gallery of poultry--eh!"

He held the sheet at arm's-length, and regarded it with a fierce frown;
but his lips twitched, and suddenly relaxed into a broad grin, causing a
tremendous display of white teeth and red gums.

"Poultry! ha! just so. What is this?"

He pointed to an object with a curling tail, which Mustapha assured him
was a cock.

"What! a cock? where is the comb? Who ever heard of a cock without a
comb, eh? And that, what is that?"

Mustapha ventured to assert that it was a chicken.

"A chicken," cried the Pasha fiercely; "more like a dromedary. You
rascal! did you not say that you could draw? Go! deceiver, you are
deposed. Have him out and set him to cleanse the hen-house, and woe
betide you if it is not as clean as your own conscience before to-morrow
morning--away!"

The Pasha shouted the last word, and then fell back in fits of laughter;
while the terrified man fled to the hen-house, and drove its occupants
frantic in his wild attempts to cleanse their Augean stable.

It was not until midnight that Sanda Pasha and Lancey, taking leave of
Hamed and his guests, returned home.

"Come, follow me," said the Pasha, on entering the palace.

He led Lancey to the room in which they had first met, and, seating
himself on a divan, lighted his chibouk.

"Sit down," he said, pointing to a cushion that lay near him on the
marble floor.

Lancey, although unaccustomed to such a low seat, obeyed.

"Smoke," said the Pasha, handing a cigarette to his guest.

Lancey took the cigarette, but at this point his honest soul recoiled
from the part he seemed to be playing. He rose, and, laying the
cigarette respectfully on the ground, said--

"Sanda Pasha, it's not for the likes o' me to be sittin' 'ere smokin'
with the likes o' you, sir. There's some mistake 'ere, hobviously.
I've been treated with the consideration doo to a prince since I fell
into the 'ands of the Turks, and it is right that I should at once
correct this