The first sound that escaped his Highness was a hysterical grunt which, in an Englishman, might have been deemed indicative of suppressed laughter, but proceeding from the bearded lips of a Persian potentate, assumed the character of an Eastern ejaculation. After muttering a few _real_ Persian words with an appearance of deep respect, Frere took her ladyship’s plump white hand between both his own and raised it to his lips; then, relinquishing it, he spoke again, made a low salaam, and drawing himself up to his full height, crossed his arms on his breast and stood motionless before her. The appealing looks which she cast upon Bracy when the prince spoke was a severe trial to his gravity; but by long experience in practical joking he had acquired wonderful command of countenance, which stood him now in good stead, and he proceeded to translate Frere’s sentences into certain flowery and unmeaning compliments, which were about as unlike their real signification as need be. After Lewis had gone through the same ceremony without the speeches, for which omission Bracy accounted by explaining that it was not etiquette for the Persian nobles to speak when in attendance on their princes, they were led to the upper end of the apartment, where Frere seated himself cross-legged on a sofa and made himself very much at home, keeping Bracy fully employed in inventing translations to speeches, not one word of which he, or any one else present, comprehended. Lewis, in the meantime, who was becoming dreadfully tired of the whole affair, stood near the end of the sofa, with his arms folded across his breast, looking especially scornful and very particularly bored. “Ah!” exclaimed Lady Lombard, as a pretty, graceful girl, very simply dressed, made her way up the room, “there’s that _dear_ Laura Peyton arrived. I _must_ go and speak to her, and bring her to be introduced to the Prince.” She then added, aside to Bracy, “She’s _immensely_ rich; clear six thousand a year, and does not spend two.” “A very charming trait in her character,” returned Bracy. “I’ll mention it to the Prince. I don’t know that there ever _was_ an Englishwoman queen of Persia; but that’s no reason there never should be one.” Bracy was accordingly introduced to the young lady, and led her, smiling and blushing, up to Frere, by whom he seated her, and paved the way for conversation by the following remark:-- “_Tharmy buoi aintsheaz tunnar?_” which for the damsel’s edification he translated--“Asylum of the Universe! the maiden, the daughter of roses, salutes thee!” After a short interval Lady Lombard again bore down upon them in full sail, towing in her wake a small, hirsute, baboon-like individual, evidently one of her menagerie. “There’s a chimpanzee!” whispered Bracy to Frere. “Now, if that picture of ugliness turns out an eastern traveller we’re gone ’coons.”