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Updated: June 7, 2025
"And if thou leave not go of my guest, I will fell thee to the earth with this stick of mine." "What, thou wilt fell me? Me? A fellow like thou threaten to strike Halil Pelivan with a stick? Strike away then, thou dog, thou dishonourable brute-beast, thou dregs of a Mussulman! strike away then, strike here, if thou have the courage!"
Early in the morning the gigantic Halil Pelivan, accompanied by twelve bostanjis, appeared among the Janissaries with three asses laden with five little panniers, containing five thousand ducats which he emptied upon the ground and distributed among the brave fellows. "The Grand Vizier sends you this, my worthy comrades," cried he. This was the only way of talking sense to the Janissaries.
"And just tell your master, the Kiaja," said he, "and all your white-headed grand viziers and grey-bearded muftis, that if they do not bring the Sultan and the banner of the Prophet into camp this very day, not a single one of them will need a barber on the morrow, unless they would like their heels well shaved in default of heads." Pelivan meanwhile was looking steadily into Halil's eyes.
The new Janissary Aga was shot dead within his own gates. Kabakulak retired within a mosque. Halil Pelivan, who had been appointed Kulkiaja, hid himself in a drain pipe for three whole days, and never emerged therefrom so long as the uproar lasted. Three days later all was quiet again.
"Nay, but that is not right," said Halil to himself; "it was you who were undermost," and snatching up the fragment of a red tile he wrote his name above that of Halil Pelivan.
So five or six of them, all speaking together, began to heckle and cross-question Pelivan. "Are there no more barbers in Stambul that you make such a fuss over this particular one?" "What an infamous thing to demand the lives of a couple of Janissaries for the sake of a single beard-scraper!" "May you and your Kapu-Kiaja have no other pastime in Paradise than the shaving of innumerable beards!"
Pelivan had anticipated that the Kiaja would foam with rage at the news, and would have the offending Janissary regiment decimated at the very least; but the Kiaja, instead of being angry, seemed very much afraid. He saw in this presumptuous message a declaration of rebellion, and hurried off to the Grand Vizier as fast as his legs could carry him, taking the heavy twelve-pounder along with him.
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