“I am happy to say that my apostleship has not been without fruit.  I have brought back to the dolman more than one young Osmanli about to rig himself out at Buisson’s; I have saved more than one horse of the Nedji race from the insult of an English saddle; more than one tipsy Turk addicted to champagne has returned to opium at my suggestion.  Some Georgians who were about to be admitted to the balls of the European embassies are indebted to me for being shut up closer than ever.  I impressed upon these degenerate Orientals the disastrous results of such a breach of propriety.  I persuaded the Sultan Abdul Medjid to give up the idea of introducing the guillotine into his empire.  Without flattering myself, I think I have done a great deal of good, and if there were only a few more gay fellows like myself we should prevent people from making guys of themselves—­And what are you doing, my dear Edgar?” “I am going to America, and I am waiting for the Ontario to get up steam,” “That’s a good idea!  You can become a savage and resuscitate the last Mohican of Fenimore Cooper.  I already see you, with a blue turtle on your breast, eagle’s feathers in your scalp, and moccasins worked with porcupine quills.  You will be very handsome; with your sad air you will look as if you were weeping over your dead race.  If I had not been away for four years, I would accompany you, but I was in such a hurry to put my affairs in order, that I have returned to France by way of England, in order to avoid the quarantine.  I will admit you to my religion; you shall become my disciple; I preserve barbaric costumes, you shall preserve savage costumes.  It is not so handsome, but it is more characteristic.  There were some Indians on our steamer; I studied them; they are the people to suit you.  But, before your departure, we will indulge in an Eastern orgie in the purest style.”  “My dear Granson, I am not in a humor to take part in an orgie, even though it be an Eastern orgie; I am desperately sad.”  “Very well; I see that you are; some heart sorrow; you Occidentals are always in a state of torment about some woman; which would never occur if they were all shut up; it is dangerous to let such animals wander about.  I am delighted that you are so sad and melancholy.  I can now prove to you the superior efficacy of my exhilarating means.  I found at Cairo, in the Teriaki Square, opposite the hospital for the insane—­wasn’t it a profoundly philosophical idea to establish in such a place dealers in happiness?—­an old scamp, dry as a papyrus of the time of Amenoteph, shrivelled as the beards of the Pschent of the goddess Isis; this cabalistic druggist possessed the true receipt for the preparation of hashisch; besides, he seemed old enough to have gotten it direct from the Old Man of the Mountain, if he were not himself the Prince of Assassins who lived in the time of Saint Louis; this skeleton in a parchment case furnished me with a quantity of paradise, under the guise of green paste, in little Japanese cups done up in silver wire.  I intend to initiate you into these hypercelestial delights.  I shall give you a box of happiness, which will make you forget all the false coquettes in the world.”