"It passes belief!" murmured Toomuch Koffi. "Allah is indeed good."
"In the United States itself," went on Abdul, "or, I should say, themselves, Toomuch, for are they not innumerable? I am to have a position of the highest trust, power and responsibility."
"Is it really possible?" I said, greatly surprised.
"It is so written," said the Sultan. "I am to be placed at the head, as the sole head or sovereign of—how is it written?—a Turkish Bath Establishment in New York. There I am to enjoy the same freedom and to exercise just as much—it is so written—exactly as much political power as I do here. Is it not glorious?"
"Allah! Illallah!" cried the secretary.
"You, Toomuch, shall come with me, for there is a post of great importance placed at my disposal—so it is written—under the title of Rubber Down. Toomuch, let our preparations be made at once. Notify Fatima and Falloola. Those two alone shall go, for it is a Christian country and I bow to its prejudices. Two, I understand, is the limit. But we must leave at once."
The Sultan paused a moment and then looked at me.
"And our good friend here," he added, "we must leave to get out of this Yildiz Kiosk by whatsoever magic means he came into it."
Which I did.
And I am assured, by those who know, that the intervention was made good and that Abdul and Toomuch may be seen to this day, or to any other day, moving to and fro in their slippers and turbans in their Turkish Bath Emporium at the corner of Broadway and—