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 THE RED RUGS OF TARSUS

casion into their playing. I was glad the ven- erable Mufti had cotton in his ears. The place was already so full of people and talk and lamp-baked air that I thought the floor of the dormitory above would spill down on us when the band thundered a climax of horns, trombones, drums and cymbals.

As the play went on, the audience did not need candied almonds or music to keep them awake. Things began to go badly for Ham- let's mother's husband. People stopped fan- ning. The dignitaries moved uneasily in their places. With heads hunched down in their shoulders, they kept their eyes glued on the stage. They are not familiar with our great William, and believe, no doubt, that we in- vented the play as well as the actors' costumes. Horror of horrors! We had forgotten what they might read into the most realistic scene. An Armenian warning for Abdul Hamid? The assassins mastered the struggling king. He lay there with his red hair sticking out [97]

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