The Pacha of Many Tales. Фредерик Марриет

equal skill and celerity. Success attended him, and the pacha, his predecessor, having in his opinion, as well as in that of the sultan, remained an unusual time in office, by an accusation enforced by a thousand purses of gold, he was enabled to produce a bowstring for his benefactor; and the sultan’s “firmaun” appointed him to the vacant pachalik. His qualifications for office were all superlative: he was very short, very corpulent, very illiterate, very irascible, and very stupid.

      On the morning after his investment, he was under the hands of his barber, a shrewd intelligent Greek, Mustapha by name. Barbers are privileged persons for many reasons: running from one employer to another to obtain their livelihood, they also obtain matter for conversation, which, impertinent as it may sometimes be, serves to beguile the tedium of an operation which precludes the use of any organ except the ear. Moreover, we are inclined to be on good terms with a man, who has it in his power to cut our throats whenever he pleases—to wind up; the personal liberties arising from his profession, render all others trifling; for the man who takes his sovereign by the nose, cannot well after that be denied the liberty of speech.

      Mustapha was a Greek by birth, and inherited all the intelligence and adroitness of his race. He had been brought up to his profession when a slave; but at the age of nineteen he accompanied his master on board of a merchant vessel bound to Scio; this vessel was taken by a pirate, and Demetrius (for such was his real name) joined this band of miscreants, and very faithfully served his apprenticeship to cutting throats, until the vessel was captured by an English frigate. Being an active, intelligent person, he was, at his own request, allowed to remain on board as one of the ship’s company, assisted in several actions, and after three years went to England, where the ship was paid off. For some time, Demetrius tried to make his fortune, but without success, and it was not until he was reduced to nearly his last shilling, that he commenced the trade of hawking rhubarb about in a box: which speculation turned so profitable, that he was enabled in a short time to take his passage in a vessel bound to Smyrna, his own country. This vessel was captured by a French privateer; he was landed, and, not being considered as a prisoner, allowed to act as he thought proper. In a short time he obtained the situation of valet and barber to a “millionaire,” whom he contrived to rob of a few hundred Napoleons, and with them to make his escape to his own country. Demetrius had now some knowledge of the world, and he felt it necessary that he should become a True Believer, as there would be more chance of his advancement in a Turkish country. He dismissed the patriarch to the devil, and took up the turban and Mahomet; then quitting the scene of his apostacy, recommenced his profession of barber in the territory of the pacha; whose good-will he had obtained previous to the latter’s advancement to the pachalik.

      “Mustapha,” observed the pacha, “thou knowest that I have taken off the heads of all those who left their slippers at the door of the late pacha.”

      “Allah Kebur! God is most powerful! So perish the enemies of your sublime highness. Were they not the sons of Shitan?” replied Mustapha.

      “Very true; but, Mustapha, the consequence is that I am in want of a vizier; and whom do I know equal to that office?”

      “While your sublime highness is pacha, is not a child equal to the office? Who stumbles, when guided by unerring wisdom?”

      “I know that very well,” replied the pacha; “but if I am always to direct him, I might as well be vizier myself; besides, I shall have no one to blame, if affairs go wrong with the sultan. Inshallah! please the Lord, the vizier’s head may sometimes save my own.”

      “Are we not as dogs before you?” replied Mustapha: “happy the man, who by offering his own head may preserve that of your sublime highness! It ought to be the proudest day of his life.”

      “At all events it would be the last,” rejoined the pacha.

      “May it please your sublime highness,” observed Mustapha, after a pause, “if your slave may be so honoured as to speak in your presence, a vizier should be a person of great tact; he should be able to draw the line as nicely as I do when I shave your sublime head, leaving not a vestige of the hair, yet entering not upon the skin.”

      “Very true, Mustapha.”

      “He should have a sharp eye for the disaffected to the government, selecting them and removing them from among the crowd, as I do the few white hairs which presume to make their appearance in your sublime and magnificent beard.”

      “Very true, Mustapha.”

      “He should carefully remove all impurities from the state, as I have this morning from your sublime ears.”

      “Very true, Mustapha.”

      “He should be well acquainted with the secret springs of action, as I have proved myself to be in the shampooing which your sublime highness has just received.”

      “Very true, Mustapha.”

      “Moreover, he should be ever grateful to your highness for the distinguished honour conferred upon him.”

      “All that you say is very true, Mustapha, but where am I to meet with such a man?”

      “This world is convenient in some points,” continued Mustapha; “if you want either a fool or a knave, you have not far to go to find them; but it is no easy task to select the person you require. I know but one.”

      “And who is he?”

      “One whose head is but as your footstool,” answered the barber, prostrating himself—“your sublime highness’s most devoted slave, Mustapha.”

      “Holy Prophet! Then you mean yourself!—Well, now I think of it, if one barber can become a pacha, I do not see why another would not make a vizier. But then what am I to do for a barber? No, no, Mustapha; a good vizier is easy to be found, but a good barber, you know as well as I do, requires some talent.”

      “Your slave is aware of that,” replied Mustapha, “but he has travelled in other countries, where it is no uncommon circumstance for men to hold more than one office under government; sometimes much more incompatible than those of barber and vizier, which are indeed closely connected. The affairs of most nations are settled by the potentates during their toilet. While I am shaving the head of your sublime highness, I can receive your commands to take off the heads of others; and you can have your person and your state both put in order at the same moment.”

      “Very true, Mustapha; then, on condition that you continue your office of barber, I have no objection to throw that of vizier into the bargain.”

      Mustapha again prostrated himself, with his tweezers in his hand. He then rose, and continued his office.

      “You can write, Mustapha,” observed the pacha, after a short silence.

      “Min Allah! God forbid that I should acknowledge it, or I should consider myself as unfit to assume the office in which your sublime highness has invested me.”

      “Although unnecessary for me, I thought it might be requisite for a vizier,” observed the pacha.

      “Reading may be necessary, I will allow,” replied Mustapha; “but I trust I can soon prove to your highness that writing is as dangerous as it is useless. More men have been ruined by that unfortunate acquirement, than by any other; and dangerous as it is to all, it is still more dangerous to men in high power. For instance, your sublime highness sends a message in writing, which is ill-received, and it is produced against you; but had it been a verbal message, you could deny it, and bastinado to death the Tartar who carried it, as a proof of your sincerity.”

      “Very true, Mustapha.”

      “The grandfather of your slave,” continued the barber-vizier, “held the situation of receiver-general at the custom-house; and he was always in a fury when he was obliged to take up the pen. It was his creed, that no government could prosper when writing was in general use. ‘Observe, Mustapha,’ said he to me one day, ‘here is the curse of writing—for all the money which is paid in, I am obliged to give a receipt. What is the consequence? that government loses many thousand