The Pacha of Many Tales | Page 4

a good barber, you know as well as I do, requires some talent."
"Your slave is aware of that," replied Mustapha, "but he has travelled in other countries, where it is no uncommon circumstance for men to hold more than one office under government; sometimes much more incompatible than those of barber and vizier, which are indeed closely connected. The affairs of most nations are settled by the potentates during their toilet. While I am shaving the head of your sublime highness, I can receive your commands to take off the heads of others; and you can have your person and your state both put in order at the same moment."
"Very true, Mustapha; then, on condition that you continue your office of barber, I have no objection to throw that of vizier into the bargain."
Mustapha again prostrated himself, with his tweezers in his hand. He then rose, and continued his office.
"You can write, Mustapha," observed the pacha, after a short silence.
"Min Allah! God forbid that I should acknowledge it, or I should consider myself as unfit to assume the office in which your sublime highness has invested me."
"Although unnecessary for me, I thought it might be requisite for a vizier," observed the pacha.
"Reading may be necessary, I will allow," replied Mustapha; "but I trust I can soon prove to your highness that writing is as dangerous as it is useless. More men have been ruined by that unfortunate acquirement, than by any other; and dangerous as it is to all, it is still more dangerous to men in high power. For instance, your sublime highness sends a message in writing, which is ill-received, and it is produced against you; but had it been a verbal message, you could deny it, and bastinado to death the Tartar who carried it, as a proof of your sincerity.
"Very true, Mustapha."
"The grandfather of your slave," continued the barber-vizier, "held the situation of receiver-general at the custom-house; and he was always in a fury when he was obliged to take up the pen. It was his creed, that no government could prosper when writing was in general use. 'Observe, Mustapha,' said he to me one day, 'here is the curse of writing,--for all the money which is paid in, I am obliged to give a receipt. What is the consequence? that government loses many thousand sequins every year; for when I apply to them for a second payment, they produce their receipt. Now if it had not been for this cursed invention of writing, Inshallah! they should have paid twice, if not thrice over. Remember, Mustapha,' continued he, 'that reading and writing only clog the wheels of government.'"
"Very true, Mustapha," observed the pacha, "then we will have no writing."
"Yes, your sublime highness, every thing in writing from others, but nothing in writing from ourselves. I have a young Greek slave, who can be employed in these matters. He reads well. I have lately employed him in reading to me the stories of 'Thousand and one Nights.'"
"Stories," cried the pacha; "what are they about? I never heard of them; I'm very fond of stories."
"If it would pleasure your sublime highness to hear these stories read, the slave will wait your commands," replied the vizier.
"Bring him this evening, Mustapha; we will smoke a pipe, and listen to them; I'm very fond of stories--they always send me to sleep."
The business of the day was transacted with admirable precision and despatch by the two quondam barbers, who proved how easy it is to govern, where there are not "three estates" to confuse people. They sat in the divan as highwaymen loiter on the road, and it was "Your money or your life" to all who made their appearance.
At the usual hour the court broke up, the guards retired, the money was carried to the treasury, the executioner wiped his sword, and the lives of the pacha's subjects were considered to be in a state of comparative security, until the affairs of the country were again brought under their cognizance on the ensuing day.
In obedience to the wish expressed by the pacha, Mustapha made his appearance in the afternoon with the young Greek slave. The new vizier having taken a seat upon a cushion at the feet of the pacha, the pipes were lighted, and the slave was directed to proceed.
The Greek had arrived to the end of the First Night, in which Schezehezerade commences her story, and the Sultan, who was anxious to hear the termination of it, defers her execution to the following day.
"Stop," cried the pacha, taking the pipe from his lips; "how long before the break of day did that girl call her sister?"
"About half an hour, your sublime highness."
"Wallah! is that all she could tell of her story in half an hour?--There's not a woman in