Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-08-26
Folks Say scan'|ous Things
About That Vanished Turk.
HE CLUNG TO THE MAzUMA
And Cried Like a Child When Dig
cling Into His Jeans.
C0UNTRYMEN HAND HIM A FEW
This Busy Bey Was a Canny Horse
Trader, Too, and Kited an
Arabian Cart Equine.

According to New York dispatches
| Mundji Bey has found that the much
| talked of Mehmed Ali Bey has gotten
| into the Turkish government for $1,000
| and says that besides having a lost
| father on his hands. the former Turkish
| minister may have to go through the
third degree when they catch up with
him in Europe, SO that the sublime porte
perplexing question. Where did you get
| it,"
IT'S said that when Mundji Bey took
charge of the legation he examined the
books and found that there was an I'M
expended balance of $1,000 out of the sum
allowed by the Turkish government for
the emergency expenses of the legation.
| Mundji Bey tried to find where that
money was, but about that time Mehmed
AIS famous diplomatic illness seized him
and the matter was not settled. Before
Mundji Bey received a reply to his cable
Of inquiry, Mehmed and his family left
Washington.
Was He a Tight-WadP
Mehmed Ali Bey had the reputation
among his acquaintances of being a
tight-wad. Armenian and Syrian mer-
| chants in Washington, casting aside the
beautiful word imagery of the orient,
came down to the hard pan Of American
slang and say that it was hard to pry a
dollar loose from Mehmed.
"Aska da beeg merchand! Aska de
gassa light! Aska da telephone comp.
self"
The "gassa light" and the Telephone
comp" do not give out that kind of in
lorna ton just because a son of Armenia
taps at the door, They treat it very mys-
teriously, though. The man at the CASH
ier's window calls man farther inside
and after he says. Eyes. er-ah. that was
the old Turkish minister, wasn't it?" he
goes in and sees some one still higher up
The exalted keeper of the accounts
wants to know who wants to know, and
then says, In answer to the query as to how
many times Mehmed Ali Bey had his
phone wrested from him. says:
THAT is question which 1 cannot an
swer. for we have to protect ourselves,
you know"
Whether or not the Turkish legation on
Calvert street suffered from temporary
darkness and isolation by reason of cut
off gas and telephone. the smiling Otto
mans in Washington firmly believe it.
Doesn't This Listen RottenP
Long before Mehmed Ali Bey resolved
to beat 1t while his sandals were intact,
a story was in circulation-and common
property, too-that he was In receipt of
several hundred dollars a month from
the sultan's government and $500 month
from Izzet Pasha. the gumshoe artist
of the sultan's palace. With this latter
sum he was supposed to teach his children
how to be diplomatists, but there was
some talk that he was saving it for a.
rainy day, and that by the size of the
wad he must have been expecting a flood
Another POn1inO hn ,nr
legation was that Izzet Pasha had given
Mehmed $4,000 on his leaving Turkey
and that Mehmed- still had it. and re-
fused to part with any of 1t. This sum
af1oat, and swells and decreases according
to the imagination or Importance of the
speaker.
Mundji Bey says the Mehmed Ali Bey
that he worked off a common or garden
animal Solomon Schinasi as an Ara
bian steed worth 5000.
"Mehmed." says Mundji. approached
Solomon with many salaams. saying:
Rosy Language, This.
Bright son of the east. long have 1 re-
garded your son Leon with favor. He is
wise beyond his years.. and handsomer
than the men of Haroun AL Raschid's
day.
His beautiful. rounded muscles and his
tapering waist show the blood of sheiks
and pashas in his veins. Do you think
he would accept from my humble hands
horse that 1 have procured from Arabia,
pure white steed. whose food is milk,
and who has lived in the stables of the
great?''
To which Schinasi. being by now
thoroughbred New Yorker, said:
You bet.''
So Leon got the horse and after riding
him around bit discovered that he had
no more pretense to Arabian lineage than
a taxicab. STILL it was a horse, and Leon
had a great time riding him through Cen
trail Park. His father was on the point
of sending Mehmed Ali Bey a gift in
recognition of the minister's kindness
when the minister was heard from, ask
ing for the $1,000 which, he said, the horse
was worth.
That finished Mehmed with the Schin-
asis