Three Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens
Page: 37

lock--Miss Bule said she could not, as the friend of Pipson,
disguise from herself, or me, that Pipson was not one of the common.

Now, Miss Pipson, having curly hair and blue eyes (which was my idea
of anything mortal and feminine that was called Fair), I promptly
replied that I regarded Miss Pipson in the light of a Fair
Circassian.

"And what then?" Miss Bule pensively asked.

I replied that she must be inveigled by a Merchant, brought to me
veiled, and purchased as a slave.

[The other creature had already fallen into the second male place in
the State, and was set apart for Grand Vizier. He afterwards
resisted this disposal of events, but had his hair pulled until he
yielded.]

"Shall I not be jealous?" Miss Bule inquired, casting down her eyes.

"Zobeide, no," I replied; "you will ever be the favourite Sultana;
the first place in my heart, and on my throne, will be ever yours."

Miss Bule, upon that assurance, consented to propound the idea to
her seven beautiful companions. It occurring to me, in the course
of the same day, that we knew we could trust a grinning and good-
natured soul called Tabby, who was the serving drudge of the house,
and had no more figure than one of the beds, and upon whose face
there was always more or less black-lead, I slipped into Miss Bule's
hand after supper, a little note to that effect; dwelling on the
black-lead as being in a manner deposited by the finger of
Providence, pointing Tabby out for Mesrour, the celebrated chief of
the Blacks of the Hareem.

There were difficulties in the formation of the desired institution,
as there are in all combinations. The other creature showed himself
of a low character, and, when defeated in aspiring to the throne,
pretended to have conscientious scruples about prostrating himself
before the Caliph; wouldn't call him Commander of the Faithful;
spoke of him slightingly and inconsistently as a mere "chap;" said
he, the other creature, "wouldn't play"--Play!--and was otherwise
coarse and offensive. This meanness of disposition was, however,
put down by the general indignation of an united Seraglio, and I