“My dear sir, my dear sir!” he laughed, “don’t make me die of laughter.  Working! those people working!  Surely you don’t think we are so behind hand in Turkey as all that!  All those worker’s stopped absolutely months ago.  It is doubtful if they’ll ever work again.  There’s a strong movement in Turkey to abolish all necessary work altogether.”

“But who then,” I asked, “is working?”

“Look on the tablets, Toomuch, and see.”

The aged Secretary bowed, turned over the leaves of his “tablets,” which I now perceived on a closer view to be merely an American ten cent memorandum book.  Then he read: 

“The following, O all highest, still work—­the beggars, the poets, the missionaries, the Salvation Army, and the instructors of the Youths of Light in the American Presbyterian College.”

“But, dear me, Abdul,” I exclaimed, “surely this situation is desperate?  What can your nation subsist on in such a situation?”

“Pooh, pooh,” said the Sultan.  “The interest on our debt alone is two billion a year.  Everybody in Turkey, great or small, holds bonds to some extent.  At the worst they can all live fairly well on the interest.  This is finance, is it not, Toomuch Koffi?”

“The very best and latest,” said the aged man with a profound salaam.

“But what steps are you taking,” I asked, “to remedy your labour troubles?”

“We are appointing commissions,” said Abdul.  “We appoint one for each new labour problem.  How many yesterday, Toomuch?”

“Forty-three,” answered the secretary.

“That’s below our average, is it not?” said Abdul a little anxiously.  “Try to keep it up to fifty if you can.”

“And these commissions, what do they do?”

“They make Reports,” said Abdul, beginning to yawn as if the continued brain exercise of conversation were fatiguing his intellect, “excellent reports.  We have had some that are said to be perfect models of the very best Turkish.”  “And what do they recommend?”

“I don’t know,” said the Sultan.  “We don’t read them for that.  We like to read them simply as Turkish.”

“But what,” I urged, “do you do with them?  What steps do you take?”

“We send them all,” replied the little man, puffing at his pipe and growing obviously drowsy as he spoke, “to Woodrow Wilson.  He can deal with them.  He is the great conciliator of the world.  Let him have—­how do you say it in English, it is a Turkish phrase—­let him have his stomach full of conciliation.”

Abdul dozed on his cushions for a moment.  Then he reopened his eyes.  “Is there anything else you want to know,” he asked, “before I retire to the Inner Harem?”

“Just one thing,” I said, “if you don’t mind.  How do you stand internationally?  Are you coming into the New League of Nations?”

The Sultan shook his head.

“No,” he said, “we’re not coming in.  We are starting a new league of our own.”