A ballet-girl syndicate is the latest development of the Trust business. But in the nature of things it will not be much of a clothes corporation.
—Richmond Dispatch.
His Complexion Was Against Him.
Hadji Hassein Ghooly Khan, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary from Persia, was one of the favorites in Washington society while there. He was very fond of going out and calling on the ladies, and was always most hospitably received wherever he went. That is, almost always, for an experience he had one Sunday afternoon proved that he was not as cordially received at one house as had been his wont. Ghooly Khan started out with the purpose of making a round of calls. It is his custom to pay his respects to the ladies of the fashionable world on Sunday the same as on the week days. The day being an extremely pleasant one, his landau was not brought into use. He walked from his residence on M street, to Massachusetts avenue, in the neighborhood of Fourteenth street, where the subjects of his first call resided. Walking up the stone steps in an indolent fashion, he reached the door and rather timidly touched the electric bell. After lingering some moments the servant appeared, and before Ghooly Khan could utter a word she shouted out: "The ladies are all busy and cannot be bothered with you now."
"Well," said the minister, completely nonplussed, "there must be a mistake; take in my card."
"Oh! don't worry them now," answered the servant, not allowing him to finish his sentence. "They are all about going to dinner and don't care for any one to see them at this time—you'd better come again in the morning; and the side door is always the handiest place for such as yez to call."
The minister waited for no more. The rebuff he had received at the hands of the unruly servant completely paralyzed him. He concluded that he had a sufficient dose of American society.
The ladies of the house soon learned of the "horrible" manner in which their distinguished caller had been received, and they at once made heroic and happily successful efforts to have the affair settled on a basis satisfactory not only to themselves but to the distinguished envoy from Teheran.