work. I asked him now and then how he was
getting on, but he had been three hours at it
before he called my attention to the accomplishment
of one portion of his task. He then
read me the draft of three lines of his high-
flown Turkish, and solicited me to admire the
beautiful antithesis, and to acknowledge how
well the two parts of the phrase were balanced.
"It is almost poetry," said he.

"Mashalla, Effendi," said I, " it is an admirable
composition; but it states the very opposite
of my meaning; and, like poetry, it is not
true."

"It would be a pity, Bey," replied he, "to
sacrifice such a gem. Observe!" He went
on, &c. &c.

He was confident it would excite the attention
and admiration of the Grand Vizier. With
great difficulty I did at last get my own meaning
substituted, deeply to his regret.

He then copied out in due form the letter for
his highness ready for the post, and I affixed
my signet.

"Now," said I, "Effendi, quick with the
two copies for the Foreign Minister and the
Minister of Commerce."

"I will at once," responded he, "set about
composing a suitable epistle for his Highness
the Minister of Foreign Affairs."

"Wherefore, Effendi, when there is nothing
more to be done than to copy that to the Grand
Vizier, as it is the communication of the facts?"

"True," answered he; " but therefore it will
never do. This letter is composed for the dignity
of the Grand Vizier. As Aali Pasha is one of
the most distinguished scholars in Turkey, I
cannot think of writing to him what is only
suited for the Grand Vizier. While respecting
the exalted rank of Aali Pasha, we must lower
it in style, to adapt it to one who is no longer
grand vizier."

"And the Minister of Commerce," said I;
"what as to his copy?"

"Inshallah!" said the Effendi, soberly, " we
will provide for him, too. We must compose
him another letter, with other words, in proportion
to his quality; for he is much lower in
rank than Aali Pasha or a grand vizier. Fear
not!"

The Effendi applied himself to the blithesome
occupation of compiling such an epistle as should
gratify the critical eye of the universally admired
master of learning, and the mail steamer
had worked some two hours down the harbour
with his letter for the Grand Vizier and my
poor and hasty substitutes for the jewelled
literary treasures of Nourri Effendi, before he
had finished Number Two.

"Mashallah, Bey," said he, "the steamer
has gone. What a pity! For this is indeed a
satisfactory letter."

He went off, having another commission to
execute for his wife on his way home; and I
never asked him for Number Three.

He was indeed an accomplished master of
his graphic art, and would sit, green spectacles
on nose, and smoke, and write, and blot
out, and get another whiff from his chibook,
and another word from the coinage of his brain,
and so his task proceeded. A distinguished
provincial authority, who had been a chamberlain
of the Sultan, courtly, courteous, and accomplished,
had received me with some hospitality;
and on his being promoted to a higher
post I was desirous of congratulating him.
Nourri Effendi gladly came to my aid. Three
days did he devote to the composition of a short
letter. Though he expounded to me its meanings
and its beauties, for there were many for
each word, it would, in my inferior state of appreciation,
have taken me at least three days
more, to arrive at anything near its exact interpretation.
I fear that I affixed my mehur or
signet to a document which I very imperfectly
understood.

After many days the slow post brought me a
reply from His Excellency. Having glanced
at it, I transferred it to Nourri Effendi for his
perusal. He was in ecstasies, and he read,
re-read, and remarked upon each passage,
making (I dare say) a most valuable commentary
on the recondite mysteries of the
oriental language. The Governor was well
known to be as great a master of the sublime
as Nourri Effendi, and had responded valiantly.

At the Effendi's request I delivered the precious
work of art to him, and at the end of a
month he was still exhibiting to admiring and
bored friends his draft, with the Governor's
admirable response.

Nourri Effendi's domestic claims so much interfered
with his public engagements, that his
occasional apologies on this head brought on
many little conversations about family matters.
His wife, although of provincial extraction, had
profited by a long residence in Stambool, to
acquire the tasteful habits of a metropolitan.
There was no need to inquire how many wives
the Effendi had, for there could be but one
autocrat to whose sway he was bound. In vain
had the legislator of Islam conferred on him, as
a true believer, the prerogative of summary
divorce by his own whim or behest, and of
making this irrevocable by the formula of
triple divorce. The Effendi must have been
long ago convinced that such divorces were not
invented for deliverance from such a wife as
his, and that divorce would only have been followed
by re-marriage to her, under conditions
of severer thraldom. I imagine he had, as the
limit of his liberty, a right of grumbling outside
his own house, and beyond reach of the lady's
ears. The narrow income of the Effendi was
spent under my lady's dictation, and extraordinary
budgets were demanded, although they
were obliged to live a life of much enforced
economy, greatly to her discontent. His provision
of tobacco and snuff could only have
been obtained by making a forced levy on the
receipt of his monthly salary; after which
epoch his purse departed from him.

From this authority I got an insight into
the subject of mothers-in-law in Turkey, and I
grieve to say he was not so devotedly attached
to his mother-in-law as perhaps he ought to
have been. Unluckily he had moved near to