began chaffering for fish in the Etmeidan market, he would not have been
a bit surprised if he had been told that every single carp cost a
thousand piastres.

He began to perceive, however, that he would have to keep the money
after all, and the very thought of it kept him awake all night long.

Next day he again strolled about the bazaars, and then directed his
steps once more towards that house where he had chalked up his name the
day before. And lo! the name of Pelivan was again stuck at the top of
his own.

"This must be put a stop to once for all," murmured Halil, and beckoning
to a load-carrier he mounted on to his shoulders and wrote his name high
up, just beneath the eaves of the house on a spot where Pelivan's name
could not top his own again, from whence it is manifest that there was a
certain secret instinct in Halil Patrona which would not permit him to
take the lower place or suffer him to recognise anybody as standing
higher than himself. And as he, pursuing his way home, passed by the
Tsiragan Palace, and there encountered riding past him the Padishah,
Sultan Achmed III., accompanied by the Grand Vizier, Ibrahim Damad, the
Kiaja Beg, the Kapudan Pasha, and the chief Imam, Ispirizade; and as he
humbly bowed his head in the dust before them, it seemed to him as if
something at the bottom of his heart whispered to him: "The time will
come when the whole lot of you will bow your heads before me in the dust
just as I, Halil Patrona, the pedlar, do obeisance to you now, ye lords
of the Empire and the Universe!"

Fortunately for Halil Patrona, however, he did not raise his face while
the suite of the Lords of the Universe swept past him, for otherwise it