The Sheikh himself received us in the main reception hall, which was covered with rare Persian carpets, any single one of which would be worth a small fortune in London. The Prime Minister and his son, we found, spoke excellent English, and the former, who was wearing the conventional frock coat of the Occident, but no shirt collar, presented each visitor in turn to our Arab host, a man just past {31} middle life with all the stately grace and dignity of his Bedouin forebears. He was dressed in native costume; his manners were easy and full of charm. He had a dark, olive-tinted face, black beard and wonderful lustrous black eyes. A strict adherent of the Shi'ite sect, and an abstainer from strong drink himself, he was, nevertheless, not averse to supplying it to his Western guests. The Grand Vizier during his sojourn in Europe had evidently studied our customs and civilization _au fond_. Apart from a knowledge of the English language and literature, he had brought back with him a fine and discriminating taste in the matter of aperitifs, knew to a nicety the component parts of a Martini cocktail, and was a profound connoisseur of Scotch whisky. Our party had few dull moments with the Grand Vizier as cicerone, and our admiration for his versatility rose by leaps and bounds. The dinner was _à la fourchette_. It is not always so in hospitable Persia where, as a rule, host and guests sit in a circle on the floor and help themselves with the aid of their fingers. Here everything had been arranged in European fashion, and the long table was topped by a rampart of specially prepared dishes with a lavishness that was truly Oriental. It is a Persian custom to supply five times more food than one's guests can possibly consume. What remains becomes the perquisite of the servants of the household. According to Persian etiquette a son may not sit {32} down in the presence of his father, so the bridegroom-elect had no place at the board, and his active participation in the banquet was limited to carrying out the duties of chief butler and waiting upon the guests. It was hot and exhausting work, in the intervals of which he liberally helped himself from a black bottle which stood on a table behind the Grand Vizier's chair. Barefooted servitors passed nimbly along the table, and saw to it that their master's guests wanted for nothing. A plate was emptied only to be speedily replenished. We saw nothing of the bride-to-be. She played but a minor part in the evening's entertainment. Nor were any other women of the household to be seen. At one end of the banqueting hall was a heavily curtained aperture. Occasionally this was furtively drawn aside an inch or two, and a woman's veiled face would appear for an instant, and as quickly disappear. It was the private view allowed to the bride and her girl friends.