The Carbon advocate. [volume] (Lehighton, Pa.) 1872-1924, 1884-07-12
THE MAGNETIC BOUNCER
BY d. X.

"They call us scientific men cruel"
said DR. Kluemann. as we sat on the at
ter.deck OF the steamer, watching the sun
sink over the distant mountains OF Spain,
land I'm alraIi it's only too true. For
my OWE part. must plead gnilty to sew
eral deeds which we're really very cruel,
and one at least, which might fairly be
called downright barbarous.
"Indeedn rejoiued I, looking at the
worthy professors broad jolly face, the
very picture of kindness and good
humor. well, if any one but yourself
had told M thai, Herr Professor, should
not have b,lieyed word of it"
1T is true, however, laughed good
Mldame Klugmann. whose plump, snil-
ing vsake looked just like a reflection of
her husbands; "and now that YOU have
confessed, Friedrich, you are bound to
do penance by telling the whole story
yourself"
80 be it, answered the doctor, with
jlvial grin. "Yuu must know, then,
mtin rerr that about ten years ago, be-
fore bud Gretchen here to look after me,
1 WAS very fond OF running from one out
ot-the-~ny' country to another aud stu y.
ing all manner of strange places and
strange people. So 7 thought it n great
piece of luck hen got AN appointment
as medical officer to the German legation
at Teheran, for 1 bad never been in
Persia yet, and thought this a fue
chance of seeing what it WAS like,
But when did see what it was like
l cant say was very much pleased with
it, after all, The journey through west
ern Persia from Tabrz was simply an
endless Succession of the most uncnm-
Portable rides imaginable upon extreme
ly bad horses over some of the wors
roads in the world; and, in addition to
this, we had the certinty of getting wet
and hungry and dirty regularly every
day, upplemented by strong probabiIi-
ty of being robbed and murdered at any
moment,
"And even when got 10 1eheran at
last, did not fiud 1t much of an im-
pruvement. For the first week, what
with the heat and the dirt and the b I'd
smells, aud ;he constant worry of brush
ing away dust that was just as thick as
ever five minutes later, and the excite
uent of being bitten all night long by
every insect that came out of the ark,
was more dead than alive.
IF there had been anything to see or
to do there it wouldn't have been quite
so bad. Bat one couldn't go out by day
tor fear of the sun, or by night for fe
of heing robbed, stabbed, or eaten up by
prowliug street dogs.
"As for the city ITSELF it struck ma as
by far the most filthy aud utterly uniu-
teresiing place that have yet seen, which
was a great deal for any man to say who
had been all across western Asia; aud
the sublime shah, when l was admitted
into his august presence. turned out to
be greasy little man in big spectacles,
who looked mneh more like lawyers
clerk than a king,
"But the greatest nuisance of all we're
the beggars, who seemed to be as count
less as locusts; aud of all the beggars the
worst by far were those rascals whom
you must haYe seen for yourself when
you we're in the east, pretending to be
pilgrims and begging money from every
body on the strength OF their being holy
men--holy pigs. ratherl
i've seen these fellows in many dlf-
ferent countries and under many differ
ent NAMES as marabouts in North Africa
darvishe in central Asia. fakirs in India;
but l never saw them anything like MS
bad MS they were Mt Teheran. You
couldn't show your face out of doors
without having swarms of them around
you in a moment, all clamoring for
money. and that, too. not as If they
were asking it as a favor, but demanding
it like downright bhers. Aud. in Iced,
they were not n bit better, and many of
them great deal worse.
'Now, it happened bat few days af.
ter first arrived l bad a visit ON a
German engineer in the 81 abs service.
He had lived there several years. and