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Vartarian's private kahvay-jee is kept busily employed in brewing tiny cups of strong black coffee; another servant constantly visits the fire to ferret out pieces of glowing charcoal with small pipe-lighting tongs, with which he circulates among the guests, supplying a light to the various smokers of cigarettes. A third youth is kept pretty tolerably busy performing the same office for Mr.
The kahvay-jee now approaches me, puffing his cheeks out like a penny balloon and jerking his thumb in the direction of the street door.
Naturally enough the idea of making a farthing show of either myself or the bicycle is anything but an agreeable proposition, but it is plainly the only way of protecting the kahvay-jee and his khan from being mobbed all the afternoon and far into the night by a surging mass of inquisitive people; so I reluctantly give him permission to do whatever he pleases to protect himself.
I begin to feel uncomfortably like a curiosity in a dime museum a position not exactly congenial to my nature; so, after enduring this sort of thing for an hour, I appoint the kahvay-jee custodian of the bicycle and sally forth to meander about the bazaar a while, where I can at least have the advantage of being able to move about.
Unfortunately, the streets and environments of Torbali are in a most wretched condition; to escape sprained ankles it is necessary to walk with a great deal of caution, and the idea of bicycling through them is simply absurd. Nevertheless the populace turns out in high glee, and their expectations run riot as I relieve the kahvay-jee of his faithful vigil and bring forth my wheel.
By all this theatrical by-play, the kahvay-jee means that the pasha a man of extraordinary social, political, and, above all, financial importance has expressed a wish to see the bicycle, and is now outside; and the kahvay-jee, with many significant winks and mysterious hints of " lira," advises me to take the machine outside and ride it for the pasha's special benefit.
A portion of the street near by is " ridable under difficulties; " so I conclude to act on the kahvay-jee's suggestion, simply to see what comes of it. Nothing particular comes of it, whereupon the kahvay-jee and his patrons all express themselves as disgusted beyond measure because the Pasha failed-to give me a present.
His subordinate, the kahvay-jee, presents himself with mournful countenance and humble attitude, points with a perplexed air to the surging mass of fezzes, turbans, and upturned Turkish faces, and explains what needs no explanation other than the evidence of one's own eyes that he cannot transact his business of making coffee. "This is your khan," I reply; "why not turn them out."
The kahvay-jee, who is acting the part of explanatory lecturer to these nocturnal visitors, explains the meaning of the wailing by pantomimically describing a corpse, and then goes on to explain that the smallest imaginable proportion of the lamentations that are making night hideous is genuine grief for the departed, most of the uproar being made by a body of professional mourners hired for the occasion.
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