Jack Harkaways Boy Tinker Among The Turks | Page 2

of an hour or so."
"Yes, sir," said the mate.
"Now, Mr. Harkaway, I'm at your service," said Captain Willis,
walking forward.
Jack grew rather red in the face at this.
Then he made a plunge, and blurted it all out.
"I have been an idiot, Captain Willis, and I want you to know that I
thoroughly appreciate your fairness and high sense of justice."
"Now you are flattering me, Mr. Harkaway," said the captain.
"Captain Willis," said impetuous Jack, "if you call me Mr. Harkaway, I
shall think that you are stiff-backed and bear malice."
"What a wild fellow you are," said the captain. "Why, what on earth
shall I call you?"
"Jack, sir," returned our hero. "John on Sunday and holidays, if you
prefer it, just as a proof that you don't bear any ill feeling to a madman,
who has the good luck to have a lucid interval, and to apologise heartily

as I do now."
The captain held out his hand.
Jack dropped his into it with a spank, and grasped it warmly.
"Don't say any more on this subject, Mr.--I mean, Jack," said the
captain, smiling, "or you will make me quite uncomfortable."
And so the matter ended.
Jack could not be dull for long together.
He plucked up his old vivacity, and went off to Mr. Figgins' cabin.
"I must go and give the orphan a turn," said he.
CHAPTER LX.
TURKISH CUSTOMS--JACK GIVES THE ORPHAN A NOTION
OF WHAT HE MAY EXPECT--MATRIMONIAL
WEAKNESSES--PASHA BLUEBEARD--THE SORT OF A MAN
HE IS--HIS EXCELLENCY'S VISIT--MR. FIGGINS IS SPECIALLY
INVITED--HOPES AND FEARS.
Jack found Mr. Figgins in his cabin, squatting on a cushion
cross-legged.
Tinker and Bogey were attending upon him.
Since their desperate dive into the sea, and the adventure with the shark,
the two darkeys and the orphan had become fast friends.
"Hullo, Mr. Figgins," said Jack, in surprise, "what's going forward
now?"
"Only practising Turkish manners and customs," returned Mr. Figgins,
quite seriously. "I mean to go ashore to-morrow, and make some
acquaintances; I shouldn't like to appear quite strange when I got

ashore. When in Rome----"
"You must do as the Romans do," added young Jack.
"Yes; and when in Turkey," said the orphan, "you must----"
"Do as the Turkeys do," concluded Jack.
"Precisely," added the orphan. "That's it."
"You are practising to smoke the long hookah to begin with."
"Yes--no--it's a chibouk," said Mr. Figgins. "That is all you have to
know, I believe, to make yourself thoroughly well received in Turkish
polite society."
"Every thing," responded Jack, "with a hook--ah."
"I didn't feel very comfortable over it at first," said the orphan, "but I'm
getting on now."
"There's one danger you are exposed to on going ashore."
"What's that?"
"Any gentleman having the slightest pretensions to good looks is nearly
always obliged to get married a few times."
Mr. Figgins stared aghast at this.
"A few times?"
"Yes."
"But I'm an orphan."
"No matter; it's a fact, sir, I assure you," said Jack, gravely.
Mr. Figgins looked exceedingly alarmed.

"If I could believe that there was any thing more in that than your
joking, Mr. Jack, I should be precious uncomfortable."
"Why?"
"Because my experience of matrimony has been any thing but pleasant
already," responded the orphan.
"You have been married, then?" said Jack, in surprise.
"Once."
"Very moderate that, sir," said Jack. "You are a widower, I suppose,
then?"
"I suppose so."
"You are not sure?"
"Not quite."
"Ah, well, then, it won't be so bad for you as it might."
"What won't?"
"Marriage."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Jack," exclaimed the orphan; "my experience
of the happy state was any thing but agreeable with one wife. Goodness
knows how long I should survive if I had, as you say, several wives."
"Don't worry yourself, Mr. Figgins," said Jack, "but it is just as well to
be prepared."
"For what?"
"An emergency. You don't know what might happen to you in this
country."

Mr. Figgins looked really very anxious at this.
"I don't well see how they can marry a man."
"That's not the question, Mr. Figgins. You could refuse. It would cost
you your life for a certainty."
The orphan nearly rolled off his cushion.
"What!"
"Fact, I assure you," said Jack, gravely.
"Explain."
"You will be expected to pay a visit of state to the pasha."
"Yes."
"That is the greatest honour on landing for a stranger."
"What is a pasha?"
"The governor of the province, a regular Bung."
"Well."
"Bluebeard was a pasha, you remember."
"No, no," interrupted the orphan, delighted to show his historical
accuracy. "Bluebeard was a bashaw."
"It is the same thing, another way of writing or pronouncing the
identical same dignity or rank. Well, you know that polygamy is the pet
vice of the followers of Islam."