The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. by Various
page 25 of 51 (49%)
page 25 of 51 (49%)
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another_."--Tell him to bring a third,--"_Now he has brought it_."--Tell
him to bring a fourth.--"_He has brought it_."--Tell him to bring the captain of them all.--"_I see a great Sheik on horseback_."--Tell him to bring the man that stole the spoon.--"_Now he has brought him_."--What is he like?--"_He is a Frangi, poor-looking and mesquin_." After which followed other points of personal description not remembered; but which drew from the Staff the observation, that a European of exactly those qualities had been about the house. We expressed our desire to be introduced to the magician, and the Consul gravely intimated it might hurt the prejudices of his wife, as being a Catholic; to the great mirth of the beautiful Consuless when she was told of it, who, though a Catholic and an Italian, declared she was the only person in the family that set all the magicians in Egypt at defiance. Having some time afterwards established ourselves in a house of our own, on the edge of the garden of the Austrian Consulate (as I remember by the token that a Turkish officer who had been taking his evening walk of meditation, very gravely opened the window from the garden, put in first one leg of his huge trousers and then the other, and strode into the room followed by his pipe-bearer, as being the shortest cut into the street; though I must do him the justice to say he laughed and was very conversable, when I brought him up with a salam and a cup of coffee, by way of demonstrating there was somebody in the house besides the Arab owner), we sent for the magician. I remember a well-dressed personable man, of what, after the fashion of the nomenclature in the Chamber of Deputies, might be called the young middle-age. He agreed to show us a specimen of his art, though I do not recollect that the nature of it was defined. He fixed upon our little boy of seven years old to be his instrument; and I remember he talked some nonsense about requiring an innocent agent, and how a woman might do as well, if she could plead the |
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