"I have already told you, Effendi, that my father died when I was eighteen years old, and that, being the only son, I became proprietor of this shop and the head of our household. "I was not married, and had no wish to be, as I looked upon women with aversion and contempt, and was angry with my mother when she wished to get me a wife. I was encouraged in these ideas by an old man named Mahran Effendi, who had been a great friend of my father, and who still came in the evening to my house to smoke a nargileh with me. He had two wives, who gave him much trouble with their quarrels, and he used to say that women were created as a punishment for the sins of men, and to prevent them from being so much attached to this world as to be unwilling to leave it even for the joys of paradise, which, he said, would certainly be the case if there were no women. He repeated to me a sentence which he said was out of the Koran, though I have not seen it there myself. It was, 'Long is the hair of woman, but short is her understanding.' "I was much struck with this, and repeated it to my mother with great pleasure, who was not so much pleased with it as I was. Indeed, she was quite angry, and said that Mahran was an old donkey, and the son of a donkey. I, however, had a higher opinion of the wisdom of my old friend, and, acting upon his advice, I determined to adopt this as my motto, and to paint it over my shop instead of the proverb which had been put there by my father. My motto made quite a stir in the bazaar for the first few days, and caused a good deal of amusement amongst the other shopkeepers and the passers-by. I have no doubt it was repeated in many of the harems also, for some of the women, who may have been teased about it by their husbands, reviled me as they passed. [Illustration: "SHE GAVE ME A GLANCE OUT OF HER DARK EYES."]