Collected Stories by Frank O'Connor

happens anyone that lays irreverent hands on a mufti’s fez. Seven different damnations! But just at that moment the Grand Mufti thumped his umbrella on the floor and said, ‘Rakaki skulati dinjji.’”
    â€œWhat does that mean?” asked Josie with a frown.
    â€œâ€˜Nuff said,’” explained my uncle. “And then the Grand Vizier imagined what his pals in Paris would say if they saw him then, taking back-chat from a fat old mufti, and the Constantinople blood boiled in his veins. He opened the door behind him with his left hand and with his right he reached out and took hold of the fez—like this.”
    â€œAnd threw it out the door,” cried Monica with her ringing laugh.
    â€œDown the full length of the palace stairs and along the hall,” said my uncle eagerly, leaning half across the bed towards her. “And two out-of-works that were keeping up the palace door, discussing tips for the two-thirty, nearly jumped out of their skins when it landed between them. Imagine it, at their very feet, the sacred fez of a mufti! But listen now! Listen to this! This is good! The next thing they saw shooting through the air on top of them was the Grand Mufti’s umbrella. And then—then what do you think they saw?”
    â€œThe Grand Mufti himself?” gasped Josie.
    â€œThey saw the Grand Vizier dragging the Grand Mufti, body and bones, by the collar of the coat and the slack of the breeches across the landing. He was too heavy to throw, but the Grand Vizier laid him neatly on the top step and gave him one good push with his boot that sent him rolling down like a barrel. And then the Grand Vizier went in and slammed the door behind him, and even from the hall they could hear him laughing like a madman, to think he was the first Mussulman in history to get hold of a mufti by the slack of the breeches.”
    â€œAnd did they kill him then?” asked Josie eagerly.
    â€œMy goodness, can’t you let me tell the story my own way?” my uncle said irritably. “They didn’t kill him at all; ’twas out of fashion at the time, but the steeplejacks tipped the wink to the Caliph, and the Caliph had a few words with the Sultan, and the Sultan passed it on to all the provincial Emirs. That’s the way things were done in Turkey then. They found it worked grand. Nothing crude, nothing bloodthirsty; nobody said a cross word; the thing was never mentioned again, and everyone was all salaams and smiles, but the Grand Vizier knew his goose was cooked.”
    My uncle brought out the last phrase with sudden savagery. He drew a deep breath through his nose, then rose and drew the curtains. I saw the sudden matchflare of the lighthouse spurting in the black water.
    â€œWisha, bad cess to you, you ould show, are you going to be there all night?” shouted Nora from the foot of the stairs.
    â€œThis minute, Nora,” he replied with a laugh.
    â€œAnd what happened him after?” asked Monica.
    â€œWho?” he asked innocently. “Oh, the Grand Vizier? He took to drinking raki.”
    â€œWhiskey?”
    â€œNo raki. The same sort of thing but more powerful. It made him talk too much. He ended up as an old bore.”
    â€œGo on,” said Monica quietly.
    â€œBut my goodness,” he protested with his roguish laugh, “that’s all there is. Nothing more. A simple story about a simple fellow. Ah, I didn’t tell it right, though. I used to know it better—all the glamor of the East.… Well,” he added briskly, “I’d better let ye get some sleep.”
    â€œThat’s not all of it,” Monica said in the same quiet way.
    â€œBut, my goodness, girl,” he shouted in exasperation, “when I tell you it is!”
    He glared down at her, a tall, raking galoot of a man with his clenched fists held stiffly out.
    â€œAh, that’s a queer old story,” Josie said uneasily. “You used to have