fez-maker's door-stone. The air was like hot
water, and Cain's curse was realised merely when
sight-seeing. I was working my way slowly,
through many impediments to my favourite, and
everybody's favourite, haunt, the bazaars, which,
if the sun rained fire outside, would still be cool
and shady as a monk's cloister, or as the London
Docks wine-cellars.

I was looking, now, at an old Turk making
vermicelli; now, at a turner rounding wooden blocks
for fez caps—for theseTurkish shops are all open
to the passer-by, and are, indeed, mere covered
stalls—when I heard, down the street, which was
so crowded that I could not see far before me,
the long, melancholy blare of a key bugle,
evidently suffering from asthmatic diptheria.
It was a querulous, violent, shriek of a blast,
blown, not in a smart, military, formal, dry
manner, but in a vagabondish, meretricious,
hopeless, tricky, yet desponding style. I
wondered for a moment, then asked no questions
of the crowd, but pushed on. That bugle was
the bugle of Paillasse! the bugle of the itinerant,
or, if stationary, only for a moment stationary,
mountebank.

A minute or two's walk brought us (for, that
energetic public servant, Rocket, was, by this time,
with me) to the door of the small shop at which
the trumpeter stood. He was a grimy Greek, with
greasy black hair escaping from under a large,
baggy, red fez cap; and he wore a greasy
embroidered jacket, and a full-pleated white kilt,
stained, torn, and unwashed. With one hand
to his mouth, and the other holding down the
old bed-curtain that hid the exhibition, he was
now and then turning to two large, but rude
cartoons, drawn with black chalk on white
paper, which hung up behind him. They
represented two biped monsters with hoofs and horns
and tail, just like the Apollyon in old editions of
the Pilgrim's Progress. They were both hairy,
and both bound round the waist, for security, with
immense chains. But there was this difference
between them: that while one had the old
Satanic type of head with glaring eyes, and a
bird's face, the other was more human in bearing,
and stood up, with an ancient tower in the
background, and held a halberd in his right
claw. There was not a smile on the face of the
showman, nor a smile on the face of the crowd,
as with an appearance of perfect good faith he
screamed the good tidings that

"Within were to be seen two monsters (some
thought devils), that had lately been caught in
the deserts of Anatolia, and had been, at an
immense expense, by permission of the Sultan,
brought alive to Stamboul. Admission, one
para" (halfpenny).

"Allah be praised!" cried one or two grey-
bearded Turks. But people seemed shy of
entering, because one or two sly Perotes stood by
and laughed or whispered.

Rocket said, "By Jove, sir, let us go in and
chaff 'em." I assented, and the Greek, with a
gracious bow and a blast of triumph on his
bugle, cautiously let us pass under the dirty
striped curtain.

I scarcely knew what I expected to see—
perhaps a poor panorama, perhaps a stuffed bear, or
an orang-outang—something that would not go
down with drunken sailors at Greenwich Fair,
or with the smallest and dullest English country
town thirsting for amusement. Yet I could
not have believed that even to the gross
ignorance of a Turk, a showman would have dared
to exhibit a live devil.

But there he was (the other, the showman
told me, had died from confinement), pacing
up and down, in a clumsy and rather shame-faced
way, in a sort of stall of a stable newly planked up
with the most solicitous care and anxiety. The
fiercest man-eating tiger, or the most tearing
maniac, could not have been hooped up more
timidly. In fact, what with the planks and what
with the opaque curtain at the entrance, it was
some minutes before my eyes got sufficiently
acquainted with the light, to be able to
distinguish a man, impudently sewn up in a sort of
hairy grey rug, which covered face, body, and
hands, and yet left some outline of form visible.
A vulture's beak, two bullock's horns, and two
enormous brown-glass bullock's eyes, completed
the flagrant impersonation. I tried, with limited
modern Greek, to "chaff" the monster, and so
did Rocket, who got violent, and wanted to
poke him with a walking-stick. The devil, feeling
himself alluded to, considered it professionally
necessary to shake his chain, and walk up and
down in a silent manner, as if longing to get at
us and "eat us without salt." But he did it
in such a slinking, downcast, shame-faced way,
that, contrasting with his sting-tail, horns, and
tremendous eyes, it drove us to shrieks of
laughter.

We went out, Rocket pinching old Turks by
the arm, and confidentially whispering in their
ears, "Pek ayi" (very good). Upon which
some dozen enthusiasts, exclaiming with one
voice, "Allah is wonderful!" poured in, and
dragged down the curtain.

                   Now Ready, price 4d.,
                  THE HAUNTED HOUSE,
Forming the CHRISTMAS NUMBER of ALL THE
YEAR ROUND; and containing the amount of two
ordinary numbers.

                   Next Week, price 5s.,
                       OLD LEAVES:
     Gathered from HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
                 By W. HENRY WILLS.
London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly.

The right of Translating Articles from ALL THE YEAR ROUND is reserved by the Authors.