it into the several classes ready for exportation.  Here Mr. Binns’ office is situated, and we are waited upon by several of his business acquaintances; among them a member of the celebrated — celebrated in Asia Minor — Tif-ticjeeoghlou family, whose ancestors have been prominently engaged in the mohair business for so long that their very name is significatory of their profession — Tifticjee-oghlou, literally, “Mohair-dealer’s son.”  The Smiths, Bakers, and Hunters of Occidental society are not a whit more significative than are many prominent names of the Orient.  Prominent among the Angorians is a certain Mr. Altentopoghlou, the literal interpretation of which is, “Son of the golden ball,” and the origin of whose family name Eastern tradition has surrounded by the following little interesting anecdote:  Ages ago it pleased one of the Sultans to issue a proclamation throughout the empire, promising to present a golden ball to whichever among all his subjects should prove himself the biggest liar, giving it to be understood beforehand that no “merely improbable story” would stand the ghost of a chance of winning, since he himself was to be the judge, and nothing short of a story that was simply impossible would secure the prize.  The proclamation naturally made quite a stir among the great prevaricators of the realm, and hundreds of stories came pouring in from competitors everywhere, some even surreptitiously borrowing “whoppers” from the Persians, who are well known as the greatest economizers of the truth in all Asia; but they were one and all adjudged by the astute monarch-who was himself a most experienced prevaricator — probably the noblest Roman of them all — as containing incidents that might under extraordinary circumstances have been true.  The coveted golden ball still remained unawarded, when one day there appeared before the gate of the Sultan’s palace, requesting an audience, an old man with travel-worn appearance, as though from a long pilgrimage, and bearing on his stooping shoulders an immense earthen-ware jar.  The Sultan received the aged pilgrim kindly, and asked him what he could do for him.

“Oh, Sultan, may you live forever!” exclaimed the old man, “for your Imperial Highness is loved and celebrated throughout all the empire for your many virtues, but most of all for your wellknown love of justice.”

“Inshallah!” replied the monarch, reverently.  “May it please Your Imperial Majesty,” continued the old man, calling the monarch’s attention to the jar, “Your Highness’ most excellent father — may his bones rest in peace! — borrowed from my father this jar full of gold coins, the conditions being that Your Majesty was to pay the same amount back to me.”  “Absurd, impossible!” exclaimed the astonished Sultan, eying the huge vessel in question.

“If the story be true,” gravely continued the pilgrim, “pay your father’s debt; if it is as you say, impossible, I have fairly won the golden ball.”  And the Sultan immediately awarded him the prize.