“Always supposing the fire-worshipping gentleman with the fez does not recognise you and try some pretty little Eastern practical joke upon you, such as inducing you to spend a couple of hours head downwards in the water-butt, or nailing you up in one of his own packing-cases. Oriental husbands have got a nasty name, you know.” “Husbands! That lovely girl is never the wife of a man with a face like old brown Windsor! Or if she is, he has so many others that he can’t have time to look after them all. If I only knew her _number_, that when I call I might inquire for the right one!” “You’d better give it up, Massey; Indian dishes are proverbially hot ones,” said Dicky warningly. But the young Irishman was too much excited to listen to anything but the suggestions of his own imagination concerning the lady. “I don’t believe she’s Indian,” he rambled on; “I never saw a type quite like it. The face is too delicate for a Creole; I wonder if she’s an Arabian. She looks like a princess out of the _Arabian Nights_, now doesn’t she?” “Yes, perhaps she does. And you had better remember all that means before you set about stealing a march on the genie. Little cunning, sensual creatures with the mind and manners of cats--” “I tell you who she is like,” pursued Massey, ignoring interruptions, “she is Scheherazade. You remember, the sultan’s wife who tells the stories, and fascinates him into sparing her life, after he’d sworn to kill all his wives on discovering what a faithless lot they were.” “And then the story breaks off without letting one know whether she turned out any better than the rest. Wise chronicler, he knew where to stop! And if you’re wise, you’ll follow his example, and leave the tale where it is at present.” But that was asking too much. The very next day, Massey rang boldly at the bell of Rahas and Fanah, Oriental merchants, and spent two or three pounds on trumpery brass pots and pans and on ill-made plaster animals, purposely choosing small articles that he might fritter away his time the more slowly, and in fact hang about on the chance of another sight of the Eastern beauty. He was served by the man he had seen the evening before, a genuine Oriental with grave, composed, leisurely manners. Massey longed to put some question to him which should lead to the discovery whether he was married, but this was not easy, as the Oriental merchant’s black eyes had an expression which suggested that he was not to be trifled with; “a sort of creepy, crafty, stick-you-through-with-a-chopstick-and-serve-you-up-with-chilis look,” as he afterwards described it to Dicky. However, he elicited the information that the dark-visaged one came from Smyrna, which did not help him much, as the only thing he recollected to have heard about that place was that: “There was a young person of Smyrna, whose grandmother threatened to burn her.”