After dinner—I forget what led up to it—I asked for a piece of paper and a pair of scissors, and having cut a square the size of the palm of my hand, I said to His Highness that I could cut a hole in it big enough to put my head through: would he ask his Courtiers if they could do the same. One after another they took the paper, and the Amîr seemed much amused as they turned it every way, and finally declared the thing was impossible. It was given back to me and I made the usual cuts. One down the middle and others alternately from the middle cut and from the outer edge—this fashion.
Of course, it would go over my head then. The Amîr enjoyed immensely the astonishment and discomfiture of the Courtiers, and laughed heartily as he mocked and jeered at them.
The Kafir Page, Malek.
All this time the little Page boys had to be standing, and they looked dreadfully tired. One of them, the Amîr’s favourite, had fever. He was a slave from Kaffristan, about fourteen, named Malek. He was fair-skinned and quite like an English boy in face, though he wore two large emeralds looped in each ear by a ring of gold.
There was a hard frost that night, and we did not get home till half-past two.
The next morning, when I arrived at the Palace, I found His Highness was asleep, so I betook myself to Samander’s khirgar or wigwam. It was as well I went, for I found he had fever. I took the opportunity also of prescribing for the favourite Page, Malek. He was a nice lad, and I had a chat with him. He seemed to be quite proud that he was not a Mahomedan in religion, though he couldn’t quite tell me what he was. He remembered only a few words of his native language.
Afterwards he became a very good friend to me. He had infinite tact, and if I wished to call the attention of His Highness to any matter without making a formal report, Malek was always ready to choose the fitting moment in which to speak to His Highness.
I did not see the Amîr that day, for he was engaged, busily and alone, answering European correspondence. I heard, however, that he was much better.
On the following day, Tuesday, His Highness held the usual military Durbar. He sat at the window of the Palace enveloped in furs. When I arrived, he desired me to examine the throat of a woman who was there, unveiled, among the petitioners, and diagnose the disease she was suffering from. When I had given my report, His Highness invited me into the Palace and I lunched with him as before. He asked me why I had ceased, since my recovery from fever, from sending to his kitchen for lunch and dinner. He desired me to continue sending, so long as I remained in the country.