“Most illustrious brothers of the Sun, and first-cousins once removed of the Moon and all the stars, may your shadows never be less! You do me proud by honouring my poor dwelling with your seraphic presences!”
“I see you have got the wherewithal to make Heathens of us,” returned Frere, pointing to the couple of Persian dresses which hung against the wall like a brace of Bluebeard’s headless wives.
“Bude Light of the Universe, yes!” replied Bracy. “Your slave has procured the ‘wear with all’ necessary to complete your transformation from infidel Feringhees to true sons of Islam. Would I have had my prince appear without a khelaut—a dress of honour? Be Cheshm! upon my eyes be it;—by the way, it’s a remarkable fact that the expression ‘my eyes’ should be Court lingo in Persia, and bordering upon Billingsgate in English.”
“You seem particularly well up in the pseudo-oriental metaphor to-night, Bracy,” observed Frere; “has the fez inspired you?”
“No, there’s nothing miraculous in the affair,” returned Bracy; “it is very easily explained. I have been reading up for the occasion—cramming, sir; a process successfully practised upon heavy Johnians at Cambridge and corpulent turkey poults in Norfolk.”
“Indeed! I was not aware that you are a Persian scholar. May I inquire what line of study you have adopted?”
“One that I have myself struck out,” responded Bracy, “and which has been attended, I flatter myself, with the most successful results. I first subjected myself to a strict course of Hajji Baba, after which I underwent a very searching self-examination in Morie’s ‘Zohrab’, or the ‘Hostage.’ I next thoroughly confused my mind with ‘Thalaba,’ but brought myself round again upon ‘Bayley Frazer’s Travels’; after which I made myself master of ‘Ayesha, or the Maid of Khars.’ And by way of laying in a fitting stock of the sentimental, finished off with Byron’s ‘Giaour’;—stop, let me give you a specimen.” And replacing the unruly fez, he sprang upon a chair, and throwing himself into a mock-tragedy attitude, began bombastically to recite—
“ ’Twas sweet, where cloudless stars were bright,
To view the wave of watery light,
And hear its melody by night;