every day after dinner, for an hour, we were all together, and then the favorite and the rest of the royal harem competed who should most beguile the leisure of the serene Haroun, reposing from the cares of state—which were generally, as in most affairs of state, of an arithmetical character, the Commander of the Faithful being a fearful boggier at a sum.
On these "occasions, the devoted Mesrour, chief of the blacks of the harem, was always in attendance (Miss Griffin usually ringhig for that officer, at the same time, with great vehemence), but never acquitted himself in a manner worthy of his historical reputation. In the first place, his bringing a broom into the divan of the caliph, even when Haroun wore on his shoulders the red robe of anger (Miss Pipson's pelisse), though, it might be got over for the moment, was never to be quite satisfactorily accounted for. In the second place, his breaking out into grinning exclamations of "Lork, you pretties!" was neitlier Eastern nor respectful. In the third place, when specially instructed to say "Bismillah!" he always said Hallelujah!" This officer, unlike his class, was too good-humored altogetlier, kept his mouth open far too wide, expressed approbation to an incongruous extent, and even once—it was on the occasion of the purchase of the Fair Circassian for five hundred thousand purses of gold, and cheap, too—embraced the slave, the favorite, and the caliph, all round. (Parenthetically let me say God bless Mesrour, and may there have been sons and daughters on that tender bosom, softening many a hard day since!)
Miss Griffin was a model of propriety, and I am at a loss to imagine what the feelings of the virtuous woman would have been, if she had known, when she paraded us down the Hampstead Road two and two, that she was walking with a stately step at the head of Polygamy and Mohammedanism. I believe that a mysterious and terrible joy with which the contemplation of Miss Griffin, in this unconscious state, inspired us, and a grim sense prevalent among us that there was a dreadful power in our knowledge of what Miss Griffin (who knew all things that could be learned out of book) didn't know, were the mainspring of the preservation of our secret. It was wonderfully kept, but was once upon the verge of self
