An old mollah taught me to read and write and repeat the verses of the Koran--and I was as much advanced as any boy under his charge--but he disliked me very much for reasons which I never could understand, and was eternally giving me the slipper. He declared that I was a reprobate, an unbeliever, a son of Jehanum, who would be impaled before I was much older; but here I am, without a stake through my body at the age of forty-five; and your highness must acknowledge that when he railed all this in my ears, I was justified in _very much doubting the fact_. When I was grown up, my father wanted me to enrol myself in the corps of janissaries, and become a lion-killer like himself; I remonstrated, but in vain; he applied, and I was accepted, and received the mark on my arm, which constituted me a janissary. I put on the dress, swaggered and bullied with many other young men of my acquaintance, who were all ready, as they swore, to eat their enemies alive, and who curled their mustachios to prove the truth of what they said. We were despatched to quell a rebellious pacha--we bore down upon his troops with a shout, enough to frighten the devil, but the devil a bit were they frightened, they stood their ground; and as they would not run, we did, leaving those who were not so wise, to be cut to pieces. After this, when any of my companions talked of their bravery, or my father declared that he should be soon promoted to the rank of a Spahi, and that I was a lion's whelp, I _very much doubted the fact_. The pacha held out much longer than was at first anticipated; indeed, so long as to cause no little degree of anxiety in the capital. More troops were despatched to subdue him; and success not attending our efforts, the vizier, according to the custom, was under the disagreeable necessity of parting with his head, which was demanded because we turned tail. Indeed, it was to oblige us, that the sultan consented to deprive himself of the services of a very able man; for we surrounded the palace, and insisted that it was all his fault, but, considering our behaviour in the field of battle, your highness must admit that there was reason to _doubt the fact_.