“By Russian custom it wouldn’t be amiss . . . puree, entrekot, champagne and so on, kompreney.”

The illustrious visitor understood, and a little later they were both sitting in the very best room of the restaurant, eating, and drinking champagne.

“Let us drink to the prosperity of Persia!” said Kutsyn.  “We Russians love the Persians.  Though we are of another faith, yet there are common interests, mutual, so to say, sympathies . . . progress . . .  Asiatic markets. . . .  The campaigns of peace so to say. . . .”

The illustrious Persian ate and drank with an excellent appetite, he stuck his fork into a slice of smoked sturgeon, and wagging his head, enthusiastically said:  “Goot, bien.”

“You like it?” said the mayor delighted. “Bien, that’s capital.”  And turning to the waiter he said:  “Luka, my lad, see that two pieces of smoked sturgeon, the best you have, are sent up to his Highness’s room!”

Then the mayor and the Persian magnate went to look at the menagerie.  The townspeople saw their Stepan Ivanovitch, flushed with champagne, gay and very well pleased, leading the Persian about the principal streets and the bazaar, showing him the points of interest of the town, and even taking him to the fire tower.

Among other things the townspeople saw him stop near some stone gates with lions on it, and point out to the Persian first the lion, then the sun overhead, and then his own breast; then again he pointed to the lion and to the sun while the Persian nodded his head as though in sign of assent, and smiling showed his white teeth.  In the evening they were sitting in the London Hotel listening to the harp-players, and where they spent the night is not known.

Next day the mayor was at the Town Hall in the morning; the officials there apparently already knew something and were making their conjectures, for the secretary went up to him and said with an ironical smile: 

“It is the custom of the Pcrsians when an illustrious visitor comes to visit you, you must slaughter a sheep with your own hands.”

And a little later an envelope that had come by post was handed to him.  The mayor tore it open and saw a caricature in it.  It was a drawing of Rahat-Helam with the mayor on his knees before him, stretching out his hands and saying: 

“To prove our Russian friendship
For Persia’s mighty realm,
And show respect for you, her envoy,
Myself I’d slaughter like a lamb,
But, pardon me, for I’m a—­donkey!”

The mayor was conscious of an unpleasant feeling like a gnawing in the pit of the stomach, but not for long.  By midday he was again with the illustrious Persian, again he was regaling him and showing him the points of interest in the town.  Again he led him to the stone gates, and again pointed to the lion, to the sun and to his own breast.  They dined at the ‘Japan’; after dinner, with cigars in their teeth, both, flushed and blissful, again mounted the fire tower, and the mayor, evidently wishing to entertain the visitor with an unusual spectacle, shouted from the top to a sentry walking below: