produce a bowstring for his benefactor; and the sultan's "firman"
appointed him to the vacant pachalik. His qualifications for office were
all superlative: he was very short, very corpulent, very illiterate,
very irascible, and very stupid.

On the morning after his investment, he was under the hands of his
barber, a shrewd intelligent Greek, Mustapha by name. Barbers are
privileged persons for many reasons: running from one employer to
another to obtain their livelihood, they also obtain matter for
conversation, which, impertinent as it may sometimes be, serves to
beguile the tedium of an operation which precludes the use of any organ
except the ear. Moreover, we are inclined to be on good terms with a
man, who has it in his power to cut our throats whenever he pleases--to
wind up, the personal liberties arising from his profession, render all
others trifling; for the man who takes his sovereign by the nose, cannot
well after that be denied the liberty of speech.

Mustapha was a Greek by birth, and inherited all the intelligence and
adroitness of his race. He had been brought up to his profession when a
slave; but at the age of nineteen, he accompanied his master on board of
a merchant vessel bound to Scio; this vessel was taken by a pirate, and
Demetrius (for such was his real name) joined this band of miscreants,
and very faithfully served his apprenticeship to cutting throats, until
the vessel was captured by an English frigate. Being an active,
intelligent person, he was, at his own request, allowed to remain on
board as one of the ship's company, assisted in several actions, and
after three years went to England, where the ship was paid off. For some
time, Demetrius tried to make his fortune, but without success, and it
was not until he was reduced to nearly his last shilling, that he
commenced the trade of hawking rhubarb about in a box: which speculation