But I was telling you about my Christmas shopping. I took Harutun, my Senior, to the markets half a dozen times. You cannot go to a shop and select the thing you want, then ask the price and have it sent home. Oh, no! You go, and appear to be looking at something else, and let your attention be attracted to the thing you really want--by merest chance. Even then you do not mention this to the merchant. You simply say to your English-speaking boy: "See that little brass bowl in the opposite corner of the shop? I will give him eight piastres for it." Boy says: "Yes, Mrs. Gibbons," and you turn up your nose a little higher as the merchant urges upon you the purchase of some other thing you do not intend to buy. You draw yourself up to your full majestic height, incline your head backward the least little bit, raise your hand in a queenly waving aside, give a little click with your tongue, perhaps emphasizing it by exclaiming in good Turkish: "Yok" (which being interpreted means "nothing doing, old man"), and then you indifferently withdraw, followed by your boy. Next day Harutun sends _another boy_, who gets your brass bowl for about one-quarter the price you'd paid if you had insisted on buying it yourself. That is how shopping is done in the Orient. In this way I got Herbert a fine old copper tray and a queer pitcher-like thing to go with it. I found two coins whose owner did not appreciate them, and these I had made into a pair of cuff-links. A tiny silver cup, about an inch and a half in diameter, with the dearest little carved handle, was the best thing of all. We use it on our desk as a place to keep pens. I pursued a camel-train, and after a great deal of intrigue came into possession of several camel-bells. These are especially interesting to us because they were bought right off the camel. It reminded me of pig-tail days in the Engadine, when I followed a pretty cow home to her owner's chalet, and bought the bell on her neck.