CHAPTER VI.
THE ODDITIES OF CAIRO STREET.
Upon the narrow streets of Stamboul a Turkish pasha may appear a very exalted personage, and command respect—upon the Midway Plaisance of the great Chicago World’s Fair he is quite another character, and when he speaks his little piece in English, he may be placed on a par with the itinerant coffee vender, or the dark-skinned doctor who sells the queer muffin bread of the Egyptians in the corner of Cairo Street.
“Let the heathen rage and imagine a vain thing,” laughs Wycherley, as he glances back over his shoulder to see if Scutari is still shaking a fist after them. His everlasting good humor is proof against scenes of this sort—it protects him like a coat of mail.
What he sees causes him a slight spasm of uneasiness. The pasha still stands there in front of the theater where the Parisian troupe of dancers holds forth, but he is no longer alone, a man with a red fez upon his head is at his side, and to this individual the Turk talks in a voluble manner, pointing in the direction our two acquaintances have gone, as though he would direct the attention of the other to them.
Craig has his mind full of the recent surprising adventure. Even the lively attractions around him do not serve to divert his thoughts from Dorothy Cereal and her unknown mission. Why does she haunt the Midway? He might imagine many things that perhaps would not be complimentary to the speculator’s daughter, but when he remembers her face he is ready to stake his life that no guile rests there. Besides, he has not forgotten what she said so earnestly to him, as if realizing that it must shock his sense of propriety to discover a young lady of Chicago’s Four Hundred wandering, with only a middle-aged duenna, about the Plaisance, haunting its strange scenes so assiduously. Why, he can even remember her exact words, and the earnest expression of her lovely face will always haunt him, as she said:
“God knows it is no idle whim that brings me here, but a sacred purpose.”
Those were her words—he cannot conceive what their meaning may be, but is ready to believe in Dorothy.
He has not forgotten the remarkable story which Wycherley poured into his ears as they climbed higher and higher in the great Ferris wheel, and it adds to the piquancy of the occasion to remember how Samson Cereal, the grim old wheat operator, the millionaire, won his bride over in the land of the Golden Horn, and that Dorothy is the daughter of the lovely Georgian who had captivated the pasha.
This brings matters to a certain focus. He is led to believe that the presence of Scutari has something to do with Dorothy’s mission. Does she haunt the Midway in order to learn from this dark-brown Turkish dealer in precious stones, the seeming merchant of the gay bazaar, the secret of her mother? At the thought Aleck feels a shudder pass through him, an involuntary shudder, such as would rack one’s frame upon suddenly discovering an innocent child fondling a deadly rattlesnake.