Near by is the exit. Beyond, no doubt, the Turk has a carriage ready. His years of waiting seem about to be crowned with triumph—though he lost the mother he wins the daughter. Kismet: it is fate.
Unexpected obstacles arise in his path—obstacles which in his native land he could brush aside, or at least subdue with the sword, but which are of a more serious nature under the civilizing influence of the Stars and Stripes.
First of all, as the man from Stamboul is about to take Dorothy in his arms, he is surprised to find someone tugging at his sleeve, someone who seems bent upon distracting his attention, and who will not cease even when he gives a bearlike shrug.
When he hears a woman’s voice pouring upon his devoted head all the miserable names known in the Turkish language, the pasha, struck by a sudden recollection, thinks it worth while to turn his attention thither.
Of course it is the fortune teller; she realizes the peril of her child. Since the day when Samson Cereal stole her away, she has learned to look at the old-time habits of the Turks with aversion, and the mother love in her heart, which nothing on earth can destroy, urges her to save Dorothy.
As well might she appeal to a Nero. This dark-skinned man comes from a country where women are bought and sold. As he sees who thus annoys him, he frowns like a Tartar, and bellows out a string of oaths strange to the gathering crowd.
There are those who hear, those who know his voice but to obey. Two men seize upon the fortune teller of Cairo Street, and despite her struggles bear her away.
“She is crazy,” is the only reply they make to the questions showered upon them, as they half drag the woman further into the Plaisance.
Again the triumphant pasha bends forward to relieve the woman of her lovely burden, but, shades of Mohammed! what is this that now descends upon him with the fury of a young hurricane? What but the Canadian protectorate, bent upon stepping between Turkey and the daughter of Chicago!
One fling Craig gives the stout pasha, only a single flip of his well-trained arms, and the Oriental goes spinning around like a teetotum or a whirling dervish, bringing up in the arms of a gay young fellow who has just come from the beer tables of Old Vienna and is consequently in a hilarious condition.