L. With old Ibrahim to give us the bastinado. I have no fair Persian at hand to offer him; and, if I had, wouldn’t do it. But here’s ——; he shall have him.
O. (grinding with laughter.) What, in woman’s clothes, to beguile him, and play the lute?
L. No; as a fair dealer; no less a prodigy, especially for a bookseller. You should save your head every day by a new joke; and we would have another new Arabian Nights, or the Adventures of Sultan Mahmoud and the Fair Dealer. You should be Scheherezade turned into a man. Every morning, the prince’s jester should say to you, “Brother Scratch-his-head, if you are awake, favour his Majesty with a handsome come-off.”
E. I cannot help thinking we are the Calenders, got into the house full of ladies; and that we shall have to repent, and rub our faces with ashes, crying out, “This is the reward of our debauchery: This is the reward of taking too many cups of coffee: This is the reward of excessive girl and tobacco.”
L. But, alas! in that case we should have the repentance without the lady, which is unfair. No ladies, I believe, are admitted here, Mr. Gliddon?
Mr. G. No, sir; it has been often observed to me, by way of hint, that it was a pity ladies were not admitted into English coffee-houses, as they are on the continent; but this is a smoking as well as a coffee-room. Ladies do not smoke in England, as they do in the East; and then, as extremes meet, and the most respectable creatures in the world render a place, it seems, not respectable, I was to take care how I risked my character, and made my Divan too comfortable.
O. And we call ourselves a gallant nation! We also go to the theatres to sit and hear ourselves complimented on our liberal treatment of women, and suffer them all the while to enjoy the standing-room!
C. Women are best away, after all. We should be making love, while they ought to be making the coffee.
L. Women and smoking would not do together, unless we smoked perfumes, and saw their eyes through a cloud of fragrance, like Venus in her ambrosial mist. This room, I confess, being full of oriental scenes, reminds one of other things oriental—of love and a lute. I could very well fancy myself Noureddin, sitting here with my fair Persian, eating peaches, and sending forth one of the songs of Hafiz over those listening waters.
J. The next time Mr. Gliddon indulges us with a new specimen of his magnificence, he must give us animate instead of inanimate scenes, and treat us with a series of subjects out of the Arabian Nights—lovers, genii, and elegant festivities.