From the first, however, he could not control his inquisitive nature, which led him to handle everything and turn over the most obvious things with a query as to their use. From somewhere he had heard that I was a doctor, and as ill-luck would have it, I had arranged in the room--which I had fondly imagined to be private--a row of nine or ten small bottles, containing a few medicines I had accumulated on my passage from Constantinople. These he saw at once, and reaching up, pulled them down one by one, examining and smelling them, and with the inspection of each, grew more convinced that my denials were but lies, and that I could cure as well as another. Mustafa Beg, however, came in here to my rescue, by asserting that he knew me not to be a doctor, although I possessed some knowledge of the science. This hardly satisfied Sayyid Nuri, so he took a couple of purgative pills, and two of calomel that I added, saying that he would try them, and would know afterwards whether I was a doctor by the quality of the purgative! [Sidenote: AN INQUISITIVE VISITOR] Then he found one of the red india-rubber sponges which are so common nowadays, and which had somehow escaped loss during my journeyings. This quite upset him. Its use he appreciated at once, for I pointed out that it was used in the bath for washing and rubbing the skin. But by chance he smelled it, and the odour of rubber that it gave out so disgusted him that he left it alone at once. But what he had come to see was the Mauser pistol, and to keep him quiet, for he hopped around the room overturning all my papers and books, I produced it. The weapon, however, did not meet with the favourable reception I had hoped, for he said he had seen and possessed one before. He found a fine pastime provided in a charge of dummy cartridges given by the sellers, with which to practise manipulating the weapon without danger. His companions were ignorant of their harmless nature, and watched with interest his movements. Having loaded, he cocked his pistol and covered the man who sat opposite him, amusing himself by making him move this way and that to be out of aim. Mustafa Beg regarded these operations with dismay, and evidently thought that Sayyid Nuri having trapped an enemy in another man’s house, was going to kill and leave him there and let his death lie at my door, and he besought him in tones of earnest appeal to put down the pistol. His companions, seeing he did not desist, also joined in the protest, and he put it down, and then proceeded to enjoy the astonishment that followed his explanation of the nature of the cartridges.