The Washington herald., 1920-03-21
New York City
By o. o. Mcintyre

New York. March 400. Henry
missed colorful tale when he
failed to invent the romance of the
Fair sari, the "One Hundred Mill
ion Dollar Virgin of stamboul."
Manhattan. biase and cynical. fairly
bubbled with excitement over the
hunt for Sari In this bedizened
Bagdad after q search through all
the cities ON the European conti-
nent.
There appeared at one of New
York's leading hotels one day last
week Sheik Ben Mohammed. tur-
baned and silk bloomered, with
ave aged. wrinkled Turks and q
group of servants. A long dis
tance phone call from Toronto to
the hotel fixed the reservations for
q Turkish commission" in good
faith.
The Commission" arrived in q
platinum lined Limousine. properly
crested and strung with Turkish
| flags. When the Turks had been
installed in their $3.50 a day suite
q notice was sent to the newspaper
shops and the pick of reporters
slid down their brass poles at the
alarm and romped off to the hotel.
Here they met with a gentle re-
bum. They must produce cards and
Sheik Ben would scrutinize them.
Finally they were admitted by sa-
laaming servants to his presence.
Sheik Ben sat on silk cushions
with his friends about him and
puffed smoke through rose-scented
| water from the Turkish narghiles.
Yes. he was real. Every re-
porter knew II. And so he told
/ of coming to New York to search
for Sari-the Virgin of Staraboul-
and the greatest aggregation of
Mohammedan dignitaries that Sir
Richard Burton ever organized in
the original md unexpurgated edi-
tion of the Thousand and One
Arabian Nights" bowed their as
sent at every word.
Sari was the light of her palace
in Constantinople. She was to have
| been wed to the Amir of Hedjaz
and the Amir was inconsolable when
she vanished, Ben Mohammed said
as pencils raced across vagrant
| copy paper. The Amir Hedjaz,
Sari's fiance. was Big Ben's friend
| and he had sent him out to scour
every far flung corner of the globe
for Sari
So, without a clew or q trail of
flour from a bag tied on her back,
as in the old Grimm fairy tale. the
| delegation Of Mohammedan digni-
taries swooped down upon New
York. All the great detectives
were called in and the only sad
note in the story was when a
snooping reporter noticed that Ben
Mohammed wore a white collar
under his costume made in Troy.
N. Y.
But the reporter was a gentle
man and would not talk back to q
Sheik. After two days the search
ended-presto and prestissimo. The
Virgin of Stamboul was found In
a Kenmare street tenement. degrad-
ed to the humble position of a
dishwasher in a restaurant. The
reason for her drop in the social
scale? Why. of course. an Ameri-
can officer-a devil dog of a ma
rine, with whom she had eloped
from her palace in StambouI had
almost blasted the hopes OF the
Amir of Hedjaz. and who after
ward deserted her.
Sari was taken from the tene-
ment to the hotel suite and again
the reporters We're called. Sari
was in Mysteries and tore the bed
| covering and muttered the name of
her fiance. the Amir. One young
lcud reporter tainted as the doctor
jabbed the hypodermic needle into
Sarfs arm to quiet her. Two other
reporters cried.
The next day it was learned that
Sari will soon make her debut in
the movies. But it was all good
fun and New York enjoyed 1t and
Big Ben went back to his little
cafe in the Turkish quarters with
his servants and Sari returned to
her studio.