Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/739

Rh betrayal. The danger and escape occurred upon a Sunday. We were all ten ranged in a conspicuous part of the gallery at church, with Miss Griffin at our head—as we were every Sunday—advertising the establislment in an unsecular sort of way—when the description of Solomon in his domestic glory happened to be read. The moment that monarch was thus referred to, conscience whispered me, "Thou, too, Haroun!" The officiating minister had a cast in his eye, and it assisted conscience by giving him the appearance of reading personally at me. A crimson blush, attended by a fearful perspiraiion, suffused my features. The grand vizier became more dead than alive, and the whole seraglio reddened as if the sunset of Bagdad slione direct upon their lovely faces. At this portentous time the awful Griffin rose, and balefully surveyed the children of Islam. My own impression was, that church and state had entered into a conspiracy with Miss Griffin to expose us, and that we should all be put into white sheets, and exhibited in the centre aisle. But, so westerly—if I may be allowed the expression as opposite to eastern associations—was Miss Griffin's sense of rectitude, that she merely suspected apples, and we were saved.

I have called the seraglio united. Upon the queston solely, whether the Commander of the Faithful durst exercise a right of kissing in that sanctuary of the palace, were its peerless inmates divided. Zobeide asserted a counter right in the favorite to scratch, and the Fair Circassian put her face for refuge, into a green baize bag, originally designed for books. On the other hand, a young antelope of transcendent beauty from the fruitful plains of Camden Town (whence she had been brought, by traders, in the half-yearly caravan that crossed the intermediate desert after the holidays), held more liberal opinions, but stipulated for limiting the benefit of them to that dog, and son of a dog, the grand vizier—who had no rights, and was not in question. At length, the diffciulty was compromised by the installation of a very youthful slave as deputy. She, raised upon a stool, officially received upon her cheeks the salute intended by the gracious Haroun for other sultanas, and was privately rewarded from the coffers of the ladies of the harem.

And now it was, at the full height of enjoyment of my