Go
you, Simo, to the khan," continued the collector, addressing a tall
momk or pandour, who, armed to the teeth, stood with his hands crossed
at the door, "and get the gentleman's baggage taken to my house.--I
hope," added he, "you will be pleased with Shabatz; but you must not
be critical, for we are still a rude people."
_Author_. "Childhood must precede manhood; that is the order of
nature."
_Collector_. "Ay, ay, our birth was slow, and painful; Servia, as you
say, is yet a child."
_Author_. "Yes, but a stout, chubby, healthy child."
A gleam of satisfaction produced a thaw of the collector's ice-bound
visage, and, descending to the street, I accompanied him until we
arrived at a house two stories high, which we entered by a wide new
wooden gate, and then mounting a staircase, scrupulously clean, were
shown into his principal room, which was surrounded by a divan _a la
Turque_; but it had no carpet, so we went straight in with our boots
on. A German chest of drawers was in one corner; the walls were plain
white-washed, and so was a stove about six feet high; the only
ornament of the room was a small snake moulding in the centre of the
roof.
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