X⸺ sent an immediate invitation to his friends to come to his house, and was congratulated generally on his good fortune; no one being taken into the secret, everybody’s pleasure was sincere, and they became accomplices unawares, in the carrying out of the elaborate trick. Just as the excitement was at its height, and the clock was five minutes to twelve, the perpetrator of the hoax arrived; he was received by the victim with open hands, and bursting to tell his news: this was heard, and the expected congratulations given. “I have made up my mind to return to Europe at once,” said the doomed one: “we shall buy a two hundred ton yacht and live a good deal abroad,” etc., etc. “By the bye, what is to-day?” said the hoaxer. The FIRST OF APRIL! Tableau! I regret to add, though, that this very cruel joke caused an attack of hysterics to the victim’s wife. X⸺ was the hero of many tales, one of which was too good not to be perpetuated. An American missionary at a large breakfast party was suddenly accosted by X⸺, from the other end of a long table, with—“I say, P⸺, I don’t believe in hell.” The parson took no notice, but the remark was repeated in a loud tone after a dead silence. “I say, P⸺, I don’t believe in hell.” The pale Yankee drew himself up, and, in the national drawl, quietly replied, “Waal, for your sake, X⸺, I hope you’re right.” That parson was more than a match for his opponent. Another Persian tale of these latter days is the answer of a lady as witty as she was prepossessing. On the high-road to the capital from the Caspian, the members of the expedition sent by the German Government to observe the transit of Venus met a lovely vision in habit and hat, on a prancing steed. They halted, saluted, and declared their errand. “To observe the transit of Venus, ah—well, you can go home now, gentlemen; _your duty is done_; good-bye;” and the pretty vision disappears at a smart canter “away in the ewigkeit,” as Hans Breitmann says. _That_ joke dawned on those Germans after some hours. There was once a little paper published in the Persian Gulf, called the _Jask Howl_, to which I was a contributor, but it died a natural death, after becoming very personal. Theatricals, too, had their day, both in the capital and down country. Lawn tennis, played on a ground of prepared mud, was the great amusement when I left Teheran. Riding, however, is the never-failing pastime, and the poorest European can afford a horse. Photography was to me a pleasant way of beguiling the tedium of Persian down-country life. I spent many hours a day, and obtained a fair proficiency; but finding myself becoming a slave to it, I gave it up, though reluctantly. In the meantime I had taken innumerable likenesses, and some two hundred types. I had also had the barren honour of having large photographs reproduced in the _Graphic_ and _Illustrated_.