The youth separated from his strange protectress with expressions of gratitude and esteem. He fixed the house and street clearly in his mind, and then went back to the bazar, which he reached just in the nick of time to save his master from a terrible beating. A great crowd was gathered before the shop, boys danced about the merchant and jeered at him, while their elders laughed. He stood just before the shop, trembling with suppressed rage, and sadly harassed--in one hand a shawl, in the other a veil. This singular scene was caused by a circumstance that had occurred during Said's absence. Kalum had taken the place of his handsome clerk at the door, but no one cared to buy of the ugly old man. Just then two men came to the bazar wishing to buy presents for their wives. They had gone up and down the bazar several times, looking in here and there, and Kalum-Bek, who had observed their actions for some time, thought he saw his chance, so he called out: "Here, gentlemen, here! What are you looking for? Beautiful veils, beautiful wares?" [Illustration] "Good sir," replied one of them, "your wares may do very well, but our wives are peculiar, and it has become the fashion in this city to buy veils only of the handsome clerk, Said. We have been looking for him this half-hour, but cannot find him; now if you can tell us where we will meet him, we will buy from you some other time." "Allah il Allah!" cried Kalum-Bek with a smirk. "The Prophet has led you to the right door. You wish to buy veils of the handsome Said? Good, just step inside; this is his place." One of the men laughed at Kalum's short and ugly figure, and his assertion that he was the handsome clerk; but the other, believing that Kalum was trying to make sport of him, did not remain long in his debt, but paid the merchant back in his own coin. Kalum-Bek was beside himself; he called his neighbors to witness that his was the only shop in the bazar that went by the name of "the shop of the handsome clerk;" but the neighbors, who envied him the run of custom he had enjoyed for some time, pretended not to know anything about the matter, and the two men then made an attack upon the old liar, as they called him. Kalum defended himself more with shrieks and curses than by the use of his fists, and thus attracted a large crowd before his shop. Half the city knew him to be a mean, avaricious old miser, nor did the bystanders grudge him the cuffs he received; and one of his assailants had just plucked the old man by the beard, when his arm was seized, and with a sudden jerk he was thrown to the ground with such violence that his turban fell off and his slippers flew to some distance.