Another Ambassadorial story tells how an august personage—let us call him Prince Florizel—sent word to the Sultan, by the Ambassador at Constantinople of the country to which he belonged, that he intended to make his Imperial Majesty a present of a horse. Now the Sultan already possessed a number of horses, and he was somewhat anxious to find out what sort of animal the Prince had destined for him. If it was to be a racer, or a so-called “Clydesdale,” the Sultan had no use for it. The Imperial horse-boxes were built to suit the size of the animals usually kept there; and in order to find room for a racing thoroughbred or a Clydesdale mare, the Sultan would have to enlarge the stable or to make the gift-horse a head shorter in order to find room for it. In this dilemma he sent a trusted servant privately—that is to say, unofficially—to the Ambassador in question, with His Majesty’s best compliments. Would his Excellency be kind enough to say what kind of horse it was intended to bestow on him, the accommodation of the Imperial stables being, etc.? Great indignation thereupon on the part of the Ambassador. “This is not the way to treat me; you are not qualified to discuss this matter with me. The proper person is the Sultan’s Master of the Horse. Let His Majesty communicate with me through him, or go to ...” The Sultan’s trusty servant returned to the Imperial Palace and gave a “truthful” but Orientally diluted version of what had taken place, omitting the Ambassadorial reference to a certain alternative invoked. For an Ambassador is usually supposed to be _persona grata_ with the Sovereign to whom he is accredited, and the openly expressed wish that his Imperial Majesty should accept the alternative of being damned would hardly have rendered his presence in Constantinople agreeable to the Sovereign. The Sultan declined to send his Master of the Horse to the Ambassador, ignored the whole affair, and took no further notice of the offer. When, all the same, the gift-horse arrived, it was received in silence and put in the Imperial stable to get fat and ugly. No acknowledgment of any kind was vouchsafed, either to the Ambassador or those entrusted with the delivery of the horse. And I am told that Prince Florizel, down to the end of his life, when he had become a powerful monarch, esteemed for his tact and courtesy throughout the world, could never understand how it was that the Sultan, than whom no man more courteous and more genuinely appreciative of a kindness existed, should have had nothing to say in return for this particular mark of attention. According to Professor Vambéry, the Sultan subsequently took his revenge on the Ambassador in question by receiving him one bitter winter day in an apartment without a fire, and his Excellency was laid up with a cold for a fortnight.