Janizaries -- Fiction; Turkey -- History -- Mahmud I, 1730-1754 -- Fiction
The next morning, when Janaki awoke and descended to Halil, he gave him
a piece of money which they call a golden denarius.
"Take this piece of money, worthy Chorbadshi," said he, "and if you will
permit me to remain beneath your roof this day also, prepare therewith a
mid-day meal for us both."
Halil hastened with the money to the piazza, bargained and chaffered for
all sorts of eatables, and made it a matter of conscience to keep only
a single copper asper of the money entrusted to him. Then he prepared
for his guest pilaf, the celebrated Turkish dish consisting of rice
cooked with sheep's flesh, and brought him from the booths of the
master-cooks and master-sugar-bakers, honey-cakes, dulchas, pistachios,
sweet pepper-cakes filled with nuts and stewed in honey, and all manner
of other delicacies, at the sight and smell of which Janaki began to
shout that Sultan Achmed could not be better off. Halil, however,
requested him not to mention the name of the Sultan quite so frequently
and not to bellow so loudly.
That night, also, he made his guest mount to the top of the roof, and
having noticed during the preceding night that the Greek had been
perpetually shifting his position, and consequently suspecting that he
was little used to so hard a couch, Halil took the precaution of
stripping off his own kaftan beforehand and placing it beneath the
carpet he had already surrendered to his guest.
Early next morning Janaki gave another golden denarius to Halil.
"Fetch me writing materials!" said he, "for I want to write a letter to
someone, and then with God's help I will quit your house and pursue my
way further."
Halil departed, went a-bargaining in the bazaar, and returned with what
he had been sent for. He calculated his outlay to a penny in the
presence of his guest. The _kalem_ (pen) was so much, so much again the
_muerekob_ (ink), and the _muehuer_ (seal) came to this and that. The
balance he returned to Janaki.
As for Janaki he went up on to the roof again, there wrote and sealed
his letter, and thrust it beneath the carpet, and then laying hold of
his stick again, entreated Halil, with many thanks for his hospitality,
to direct him to the Pera road whence, he said, he could find his way
along by himself.
Halil willingly complied with the petition of his guest, and accompanied
him all the way to the nearest thoroughfare. When now Janaki beheld the
Bosphorus, and perceived that the road from this point was familiar to
him, so that he needed no further assistance, he suddenly exclaimed:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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