THAT TELEGRAM.
(Some Yildiz Comments on a Recent Editorial Exploit.)
Mashallah! Am I, the Full Moon That Blazeth in Heaven Like Anything, to be bested by a Penny Journalist, a Feringhee Writer of the Thing that is Not, a Gazetteer who is Ac-cust? Shall I, the Padishah Whose Piano-playing Edifieth the Distant Constellations, submit to be out-manœuvred in my own particular line by an Unbelieving Dog, a Giaour of Giaours? What though he be Lord of Lo Ben and of a Hundred Press-carts, he shall learn that a Concocter of Copy is no match for The Unspeakable One! Inshallah!... What ho! Summon the Grand Vizier, and let the Chief Bowstringer be in attendance! Bring in the medicated coffee for one, and rahat lakoum for two!...
What saith the dog of a dragoman? The Infidel Frank refuseth the mark of My very distinguished Favour, the Medjidieh of the Fourth Class? Will not that stop his accursed inquisitiveness? Or doth he wish for an Osmanieh, set in brilliants? Ingleez though he be, he must have his price!... No? He will not take an Osmanieh, not even of the First Class!!
Ah, perhaps he will give, if he will not take? Times are hard, and there is that Russian indemnity. Nay, it need but take the form of an Irredeemable Loan, or a Mortgage on the flourishing revenues of Our most prosperous province of Arabia Felix. We sorely need a new ironclad or two, for Our boilers are rusting badly, and Our keels are rotting beyond repair at their anchorage in the Bosphorus....
What!? The alien unbeliever neither giveth nor taketh? And doth not care one "snuff" (whatever that may mean) whether his telegram to Europe in general, and the P-ll M-ll G-z-tte in particular, goeth or not? Verily, he knoweth not the rules of Oriental diplomacy. But though the telegram shall not go, if we know it, the Sublime Porte shall yet give the quill-driving outcast a lesson in shilly-shally and hanky-panky. He shall know that the Commander of the Faithful is not to be called an impotent Potentate (with a big P) in vain. We will sit up all night, pretending to re-draft his telegram, and really enjoying his discomfiture! "Impotent Potentate," indeed! Let the chief telegraph-clerk be beheaded on the spot!...
"Wheel and Woe."—"A Word of Warning" to women bicyclists appeared in the St. James's Gazette last Friday, by "A Medical Man." Quite right. This Round of Wheel is overdone. Instead of "Wheel," the Medico cries "Woa!"