YUSUF BEY'S SOFA CUSHION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 07, Issue 23, 7 June 1900, Page 23

YUSUF BEY'S SOFA CUSHION.

Scum EFFENDI was hard up for caßh. As a registry clerk in the Candidacy Bureau at the Sheikh ul Islam's office in old Stamboul he had a salary of $7.50 a month. His salary had been fixed under a prevalent theory that a live clerk would discover how to pain ?25 or $80 a month in presents from the candidates for appointment as preacher, for these candidates are always in a terrible hurry for their papers. Selim Effendi also had converted this theory into ihrewd and pitiless praotioe. He had been lucky, too. Through the kindness of his friend and patron, Yusuf Bey, he had obtained a life ration of two rolls of white bread per day from the Fund for the Encouragement of Theologians, and through his own foresight he had composed a laudatory poem on a great state occasion which won for him a life annuity of $3 50 a month. But his sanguine temperament made his expenses discount his luck. After paying the cost of keeping up appearances, for the keep of his horse and the wages of his groom, for the schooling of his boys and the hire of a servant to attend them to the school, and for the silks and odd bits of jewellery which his wife expected out of any particularly fat fee, Selim Effendi regularly felt the malignity of Fortune at the end of each month. His luck then was to find no money in his pocket to pay the butcher, the baker, and the grocer, who seen to prefer to sell on oredit in old Stamboul. One day the baker, standing in mid-street in front of Selim Effendi's closed door, and using that painfully loud tone common to Constantinople bakers when addressing recalcitrant customers, had uttered hia views on people who take bread and do not pay for it. Then Selim Effendi saw that something mast be done. He might change his baker. But this means of relief bad already been • resorted to, and the poor clerk's favorite nightmare was a vision of the man who had formerly enjoyed the privilege of supplying him with bread coming forward at some peculiarly embarrassing time and place to create a scene by his bawling. Turks loathe scenes. So Selim felt hard up for cash. Then he thought of his old friend Yuan! Bey, the subchief of the Land Office. Yusuf Bey was best seen for private affairs at his house, in the morning, where he was itill comfortably lounging, barefooted and bare-armed, in his white cotton underclothing and the figured chintz robe known in Turkey as a nightdress. In this airy attire he received Selim Effendi with the cordiality shown by a man who has see a life to one who has helped him to ace it. He winced a little on noting the solemnity with which, in answer to his inquiry, Selim Effendi siid . 'I am well; to God be the glory,' for by such slight tokens the Turkish official foresees the purpose of a private call in the morning. So he skillfully thrust the conversation into distant political channels, whence his vis'tor would find it hard to return iv any short time to questions of more limited interest. They discussed the Russian indemnity ; the new grand vizier's low origin, and the ' words which cook no dinners ' wherewith in Egrypt England was showing friendship to Turkey. Then Yusuf Bey thoughtlessly des-ribed a most delightful bake of red mullet in oil, to which his cook had introduced him a day or two before. This was Selim Effendi'a opportunity. 1 Ah, Yusuf Bey, my lamb !' said he. 'You will understand my sufferings as you Bpeak, when you learn that f >r months I have not so much as seen the bloom of a red mullet on my table. The grocer and the baker leave me no chance to Hay aught to butcher or fishmonger. The pressure which my baker puts upon me would tqueeie juice out of rock. And my children ! They are ragged ci Lazarus. Every night I take refuge in the coffee shop froji their clamor for clothes.' ' Keep up your courage Selim. However high a mountain is, be sure that its pass can be found. Of course happy candidates eke out your salary /' ' Yen, but some misbegotten wretch has appointed that beggar Sami Effendi fcupernumerary under my desk. He takes part. You can make the pass over my mountain of poverty. Have pity on me, Yusuf Bey ! I will kiss your feet I Lend me £11 and you will raise me from the dead. It is November and there are still wood iind coal and other necessaries to be provided for my children. Be kind to me ! I will make many, many prayers for you.' ' Do you not suppose that I, too, know the bitterness of such a condition as yours ? But in these days salary does not come out of the Treasury more than twice in the year.' 'Ah ! but in the Land Office there is always money. Be merciful to me. After God, you are my only hope ! In tix months 1 will have money coming to me, and your loan will be ihe first thing to be paid. I will never forget your benefits. I will pray God daily to give you great opportunities. 1 ' See here, my friend, do not break my heart with entreaty. A man's flesh cannot ba eaten, his skin cannot be made into leather, aud what is he good for if not to help his fellows/ Come back to-morrow morning, and we will see what can be done.' The next morning Selim Effendi appeared at usuf Bey's house again, and was received with solemn courtei-y. The two men smoked cigarettes and sipped black coffee, while the conversation rolled easily from politics to the latest palace bcaudali, and from scandals to the appointments gazetted in the morning paper?. At labt Selim Effendi said : ' Yesterday you were good enough to give me hope. If I have found favor ' ♦ ' Yes, yes,' interrupted Yusuf Bey, ' your children are in need, <^nd you want £3, which you will repay in six months. If there is any there I will lrnd it to yon. Just turn up the end of the cushion on which you are sitting, and see 'f there is anything there.' Selim Effendi lifted the end of the sofa cushion, and behold, on the matting under it lay three shining pieces of gold 1 With a

quick clutch he thrust them into his pocket, saying : ' 0 my benefactor ! You have extended my days ! Day and night I shall pray God to reward you a thousandfold.' He made a plunge at the skirt of Yusuf Bey's robe to kiss it. Yusuf Pey tried to draw away the robe, and so Selim Effendi got hold of his hand and pressed it to his lips and to his forehead with appearance of great emotion. For Selim was punctilious in outward practice of decorum. Then, saying ' May God be content with you ' May God give you all success ! ' he went away. It chanced to be characteristic of Selim Effendi that his praiseworthy emotions often lagged behind the mental effort to express them in response to some twinge of conscience. Snoh a habit makes a well-balanced course in life far more easy than where the emotion comes first, and forces the outburst of hot words and perhaps of hasty action which reveals it. Bat it had with Selim the curious result that to express a good intention carried with it a glow of self-commendation. This in turn made the effort to express the intention in vigorous words vaguely impress his mind like labor to execute it. After an ardent declaration of purpose, therefore, nothing remained to be done but to embalm it in memory as a good deed completed. By the time that he reached the street after leaving his friend his mind felt no remainder of need to pay his debts and to provide for the coming winter. The only thing that pressed was to silence the baker by giving him a pound on account, together with certain unsavory epithets due to a man who pesters for money Government officials occupied with graver matters than a baker's ledger accounts. The rest of Yusuf Bey's £3 followed the easy goiDg rulp of many windfalls of wealth. ' God is good,' said Selim to himself, as he bought a gilt watch chain and some theatre tickets. 'If I have luck with the Rtmelian Railway lottery I will then get the winter supplies, and Yusuf shall have his money back, too.' Six months passed, then a year. Selim Effendi was still hard up for cash, and the loan was still unpaid. By foresight and alertness he succeeded in avoiding his friend. Then he met him unexpectedly face to face. Yusuf Bey was cordial as usual and said nothing about money. They met several times in the same friendly way. Little by little Selim learned to say to himself : ' This man haa so much money that he does not know what he had two yean aero. Why should I remember what he has forgotten 1 What God has put in my way I must accept with thanksgiving, I ate it up, and it is gone. That is the end of it.' In 1894 a great earthquake shook to its foundations the laay old city of Constantinople. It cracked the walls of houses and brought down about the ears of the shopkeepers in the bazaars huge masses of antique masonry, to say nothing of the stones from lofty cornices or from swaying minarets which it hurled at the heads of passers in the streets. During a terrible two weeks people lived in tents hastily pitched in gardens or in public squares. After the earth ceased its caracoling and the dead were buried, the living began to venture back to their houses and learned the extent of the calamity. Selim Effendi found that a chimney had crashed through the root of his house, and that every east and west wall in the upper story was so cracked as to shed much of its plastering. The family swept out the crumbled lime and mortar and lived in the shattered rooms, while Selim was haggling with the officers in charge of the relief fund as to the percentage which he ought to pay them for inscription on the roll of the sufferers. Then the September rainstorm came pouring through the gap in the roof, and his wife and children had to raise umbrellas in their beds at midnight. This showed Selim that his house mnst be repaired before it could afford shelter from the winter. The money wrung from the relief commission was not enough. What more natural than that he should remember the kindness of his friend, Yusuf Bey ? ' Yußuf has forgofen the affair of three years ago,' said Selim to himself, 'and this time I will certainly repay him.' 8o he again called upon Yusuf Bey in the early hour of privilege, when the great man was still reclining upon the divan of comfort, dressed in his white underclothing and his chintz night robe. After the usual skirmishing around the horizon, Selim came to the central point of his thoughts by saying : ■ May God spare you, my friend, from such damage as the earthquake did to us. The brook which I thought would not wet my ankles has gone over my head.' ' Oh, you want to borrow £3 again, 1 said Yusuf Bey, smiling. "Well, come to-morrow morning, and we shall see what we can do. A man is not worth much unless he is of use to his fiends. Selim wasabtonished at his easy success. The word ' apain ' stabbed his consc once. The former loan was not iorgotten. Yet he had been told as before to come tne next morning. It must be that Yupuf Bey was one of those men «ho overlook faults and do good deeds as treasure laid up in heaven. The next morning the psychological moment came for delicately hinting that he would like an answer to his request. Selim somehow felt himself to be trembling. But Yusuf Bey, as before, told him to look under the sofa cushion upon which he was sitting. Selim raised the end of the cushion with a smiling face. The bare matting alone met his eyes ' The man was ho astounded that involuntarily he said, 'Plague take it, there is nothing here ■' ' Nothing there V said Yusuf Bey. 'Look well. Are you sure that they haven't slipped further back under the cushion V ' No,' replied Selim. tugging to lift the heavy cuobion, ' there is nothing here but some dust and a spider.' ' Well, well !' paid Yusuf Bey. •It must be that you forgot to put them back I If you had put them back the other time, they would certainiy be there now, I am truly sorry not to help you ; bat you see for yourself there in nothing there.' For a moment Selim 'a mind was paralyred. Then as the meaning of Yusuf Bey's words dawned upon him, he made a profound salutation, and went away. He had taken one step in bia education . — Exchange.