We were fortunate enough to
reach our own at once, and, with a shouting crew, away we dashed up
the river, leaving the others struggling, fighting, and flourishing
their paddles in the air, in a way which was more suggestive of an
insurrection scene in Masaniello than the departure of guests from
a peaceable gentleman's own hall door on the night of an evening party.
On the stairs there was an extraordinary assemblage of slippers, which
seemed to hold the same relative position that hats and cloaks do in
more enlightened communities -- that is, the good ones were taken by
the owners of the bad, and the proprietors of the bad ones were fain
to make the best of the exchange. Next morning our khidmutgar came up
with a most doleful countenance and presented to our notice a pair of
certainly most ill-favoured slippers, which a fellow true-believer had
INADVERTENTLY substituted for a pair of later date. The lost ones had,
in fact, only recently been received from the boot-maker; and the
blow was difficult to bear with resignation, even by the saintliest
follower of Islam -- a reputation which our retainer came short of
by a very long way indeed.
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