Well, you ought to have seen that sickly looking sultan brace up when dad handed him the millions of mining stock, and he grabbed the paper like an old clothes buyer would grab a dress suit that a wife had sold for 60 cents, belonging to her husband. He also wanted to see the gold that dad had shown as coming from the mine, and when dad showed him the yellow boys he took them as souvenirs and put them in his girdle, and then I thought dad would faint, but he kept his nerve like a poker player betting on a bobtail flush.
The sultan asked so many questions about America that I was afraid dad would get all balled up, but he kept his nerve, and lied as though he was on the witness stand trying to save his life. Dad told the sultan he was authorized by the American people to inquire into the industries of Turkey, and what he particularly desired was an insight into the harems, as a national institution, because many American people were gradually adopting the customs of the orient, and he desired to report to congress as to whether we should adopt the customs of Turkey with her dried prunes and dates with worms in, and her attar of roses made of pig's lard; her fez, to cure baldness, and her outlandish pants and peaked red Morocco shoes, and her harems.
The sultan said he would like to show us a little bunch of the cream of the harem, who would do a stunt in the way of dancing, to celebrate the good feeling of the American people, and the visit of the distinguished statesman and gold miner to his realm, and dad said the sultan couldn't turn his stomach with no cream of the harem, only they must keep their hands off him, and the sultan promised he should be as safe as a “unique,” whatever that is.
Dad and I had hired knee breeches and things of a masquerade ball store, and we didn't look half bad when the crowd of shieks and things formed a crescent around the sultan, who sat in a sort of barber's chair with an awning over it, and they sounded a hewgag or something, and about a dozen pretty fine looking females, dressed like the ballet in a vaudeville show, came in and began to dance before the sultan.
Dad stood it first rate until a girl got on the carpet barefooted and began one of those willowy sort of dances that nearly broke up the Chicago fair, when people left the buildings filled with the work of the world's artists, in all lines of progress, and went to the Midway in a body to see “Little Egypt,” but when this dancer waltzed up to dad and wiggled in a foreign language, dad sashayed up to her and I couldn't hold him back.
He was just getting warmed up to “balance to partners,” when a frown came over the sultan's face and he looked cross at dad, and then the hewgag sounded, and the girls scattered out of a side door and dad wanted to follow, but I held him by the coat, and it was over. I think those girls were the only ones in the whole harem that were good looking.
Dad breathed hard a little from his exercise, and said he was ready to inspect the stock, and the sultan detailed a tall negro, with a face dried up like a mummy, and we started out through the harem, dad pulling the long hair on the side of his head over his bald spot, and throwing his shoulders back and drawing in his stomach to make him look young.
Well, say, there is nothing about a harem, much different from keeping house at home, except that there is more of it. The idea people get of harems is that the women are all young and beautiful, and that they sit around a swimming tank and play guitars and keep the flies off the man who owns the place, while he smokes the vile Turkish tobacco burning in a jardiniere, through a section of rubber hose, and goes to sleep like a Chinaman smoking opium, and that they drink rare wines and dance with bangles on their legs and ropes of pearls on their necks and arms.