THE GENERAL'S WIFE AND THE SULTAN’S PRESENT.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 996, 12 February 1883, Page 3

THE GENERAL'S WIFE AND THE SULTAN’S PRESENT.

The Sultan of Turkey has presented Gen. Lew Wallace, the American Minister, with a beautiful Circassian girl. Mrs Wallace was sitting at the front window of her Constantinople house, on the verge of going down to the bazaar for some embroidered stuffs to send home, when a cavalcade drew up .before.the door, a huge eunuch, arrayed in Sultan livery, knocked at tho door and salaamed, and then two eunuchs a size smaller brought in and deposited on the insido door-mat a big eyed, beautiful Circassian sill, whoso lustrous orbs and sparkling jewels were but little obscured by the filmy gauze veiling that covered her from head to foot, Mrs Wallace stared at the girl in dumb amazement. « What do you want ?” she said. The girl shook her head. “Mustaby, Mustaby !” cried Mrs Wallace, sharply ; “ what does this mean?” Mustaby. caraa from the floor below, where he had been polishing some knives with Bristol brick. He dropped the knife . and brick when he caught sight of the visitor. ■_ ■ ’ “ Ah, ah,” he ejaculated, with satisfaction, and he saw tho imperial image ; “it is a present. It is a present. It is a magnificent present. His Highness has smiled upommy master and has sent him his choicest slave.” “ And what is the choicest slave going to do in this house, I would like to know ?” continued Mrs Wallace, with a vinegary gleam of sarcasm. “She will bring my master’s coffee to him when he awakens in the morning, and • affectionately superintend his morning’s ablutions.” “She will, will she ?” remarked Mrs Wallace, as she gritted her teeth very hard. ! “ She will affectionately superintend his morning’s aboltions, will she ?” and she stealthily fingered a bric-a-brac scimitar, and glared at the offending present. , Then she walked straight up to the beauty on the door-mat, pointed her index finger out to the front door, and remarked 1- “Go way !” . . W The present stared at her stupidly. “ Go’way, I tell you. .You’ra shameless bnssy to come “intruding on a respectable family in this way.” The’ present did not look as though she had done anything particularly infamous, and showed no disposition to move. Mrs Wallace could contain herself no longer. She flew at the present, grabbed it by the shoulder, and was bustling it down stairs, when Gen. Wallace came around the corner, rather flushed from rapid : walking. He took in the situation at a glance. ' “Oh Lewis !” cried his wife, with accenuated horror, “ did you ever hear of such a thing?” Lewis did not look horrified, though ho '• evidently was. He evidently had heard of r suoh things, for there was a doubtful look on his face. Finally he said : : ; “I don’t think, Maria, that I would put it but into the Street.. It’s not to blame, 3'ou know.” ■ There was a faint snap in Mrs Wallace’s eyes, but she nodded and lured him on ; further. “ You see it’s a presentj and you. can’t give away or throw away a present, you know. If we could send it back, saying •that We had no use for it, or that jvb had one already, and couldn’t ho make it something else, it would be the best way. You have to consult custom and etiquette in these things, yon know, dear.” “ Y-e-e-s,” said Mrs. W., with a sinister sweetness in her compliance. “ Besides ” he continued, as he carelessly took bold of the present’s hand and began stroking the present’s brow in a gentle and fatherly way, “ I dont really know if it would be safe to send it back at all. You see those foreign powers are mighty touchy, and I don’t know but if I was to send this present back, and turn up iiiy nose at it in such a way, they might be mad enough to declare war on the United States right off and massacre us all.” “You would, would you?” remarked Mrs Wallace, in a voice like the first rumblings of a rising typhoon. “ ’Braid to send it back, are you, you bald-headed old fiaud ? ’Fraid of international complications, are you, you old wretch ? Now you can understand this, and right now. If that present doesn’t go back to that old beast who sent it in less than ten minutes, I’ll show 3’ou what kind of a Bulgarian atrocity you’re married to. I’ll show you,” she hissed, as she flew at the present, and inaugerated a panic in dry goods and halfpins and Circassian squeals and male protests and finally hysterics, and Gen. Wallace called a camel and packed the girl off at hot speed. Then he went and caught it—caught it so hot that lie remarked to the Vice-Consul that sooner than go through the like again he would see the whole continent bathed in blood, and the American eagle bombarded until it hadn’t a pin feather to its name, —Omaha Bee.