THE RED RUGS OF TARSUS
shopping. I took Harutun, my Senior, to the markets half a dozen times. You cannot go to a shop and select the thing you want, then ask the price and have it sent home. Oh, no! You go, and appear to be looking at something else, and let your attention be at- tracted to the thing you really want by merest chance. Even then you do not mention this to the merchant. You simply say to your English-speaking boy: "See that little brass bowl in the opposite corner of the shop ? I will give him eight piastres for it." Boy says: "Yes, Mrs. Gibbons," and you turn up your nose a little higher as the merchant urges upon you the purchase of some other thing you do not intend to buy. You draw yourself up to your full majestic height, incline your head back- ward the least little bit, raise your hand in a queenly waving aside, give a little click with your tongue, perhaps emphasizing it by ex- claiming in good Turkish: "Yok" (which be- ing interpreted means "nothing doing, old [71]
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