Seeing the absence of anything else, I order her forthwith to capture one for me, and the Persian gentleman orders another.  The woman sets three youngsters and a yellow, tailless dog to run down the chickens, and in a few minutes presents herself before us, holding in each hand the plucked and scrawny carcass of a fowl that has had to scratch hard and persistently for its life for heaven knows how many years.  One of the chickens is considerably larger than the other, and I tell the Persian gentleman to take his choice, thinking that with himself and his two servants he would be glad to accept the larger fowl.  On the contrary, however, he fixes his choice on the smaller one.

Touched by what appears to be a simple act of unselfishness, I endeavor to persuade him to take the other, pointing out that he has three mouths to fill while I have only one.  My importunities are, however, wasted on so polite and disinterested a person, and so I reluctantly take possession of the bulkier fowl.

The Persian’s servant dissects his master’s purchase and stows it away for future use, the three making their supper off bread and a mixture of grease, chopped onions and sheerah from the larder of their saddle-bags.  The woman readily accepts the offer of an additional half keran for relieving me of the onerous task of cooking my own supper, and takes her departure, promising to cook it as quickly as possible.

Happy in the contemplation of a whole chicken for supper, I sit around and chat and drink tea with my disinterested friend for the space of an hour.  To a hungry person an hour seems an ominously long period of time in which to cook a chicken, and, becoming impatient, the Persian gentleman’s servant volunteers to go inside and investigate.  I fancy detecting a shadow of amusement passing over the face of the gentleman as his servant departs, and when he returns with the intelligence that the chicken won’t be tender enough to eat for another hour, his risibilities get the better of his politeness and he gives way to uncontrollable laughter.  Then it is that a gleam of enlightenment steals over my unsuspecting soul and tells me why my guileless fellow-traveller so politely and yet so firmly selected the smallest of the fowls—­he is a better judge of Persian “morges” than I. The woman finally turns up, bringing the result of her two hours’ culinary perseverance in a large pewter bowl; she has cut the chicken up into several pieces and has been industriously keeping the pot boiling from the beginning.  The result of this laudable effort is meat of gutta-percha toughness, upon which one’s teeth are exercised in vain; but I make a very good supper after all by breaking bread into the broth.  I don’t know but that the patriarchal ruler of the roost makes at least the richer broth.