Burt Standish - Dick Merriwell's Pranks - or, Lively Times in the Orient

The steamer had crossed the Sea of Marmora and entered the Bosporus. It was approaching Constantinople. On the right lay Asia, on the left Europe. Either shore was lined with beautiful mosques and palaces, the fairylike towers and minarets gleaming in the sunshine.

The deck was crowded with people eagerly gazing on the bewitching scene. From that point of view it was a land of enchantment, strange, mysterious, fascinating. Shipping from all quarters of the globe lay in the splendid harbor.

Among the crowd on deck were two boys who were making a European tour in charge of Professor Zenas Gunn, of the Fardale Military Academy, from which one of the students had been unjustly expelled. This was Dick Merriwell, the younger brother of the former great Yale athlete and scholar, Frank Merriwell.

With Dick was his chum and former roommate at Fardale, Bradley Buckhart, of Texas.

“What do you think of it, Brad?” asked Dick, placing a hand on the shoulder of his comrade, who was leaning on the rail and staring at the bewildering panorama.

Buckhart drew a deep breath.

“Pard,” he answered, “she beats my dreams a whole lot. I certain didn’t allow that the country of the ‘unspeakable Turk’ could be half as beautiful.”

“Wait until we get on shore before you form an opinion,” laughed Dick. “It certainly is beautiful from here, but I have reasons to believe that things will not seem so beautiful on closer inspection.”

“Then I opine I don’t care to land!” exclaimed Brad. “I’d like to remember her just as she looks now.”

“Hum! ha!” broke in another voice. “I don’t blame you, my boy. Isn’t she beautiful! Isn’t she wonderful! Isn’t she ravishing!”

“All of that, professor,” agreed the Texan.

Professor Gunn, who had joined them, readjusted his spectacles and thrust his hand into the bosom of his coat.

“I have admired her for a long time,” he declared. “In fact, ever since my eyes first beheld her intellectual and classic countenance. Her hair is a golden halo.”

“Eh?” grunted Buckhart, in surprise.

“Hair?” exclaimed Dick, puzzled.

“Her eyes are like limpid lakes,” continued Zenas.

“Eyes?” gasped both boys.

“Her mouth is a well of wisdom.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Dick.

“Her teeth,” went on the professor – “her teeth are pearls beyond price.”

“Is he daffy?” muttered the Texan.

“And her form has all the grace of a gazelle. She is a dream of enchantment. Every movement is a poem. I could worship her! I could spend my life at the feet of such a woman listening to the musical murmur of her heavenly voice.”

“Look here, professor,” said Dick, “what is the matter with you?”

“I’m enthralled, enchanted, enraptured by that woman.”

“What woman?”

“Why, the one we are talking about, Sarah Ann Ketchum, president of the Foreign Humanitarian Society, of Boston, Massachusetts. Who else could I be talking about?”

“Oh, murder!” exploded Brad. “Wouldn’t that freeze you some!”

Both boys laughed heartily, much to the displeasure of the professor.

“Such uncalled-for mirth is unseemly,” he declared. “I don’t like it. It offends me very much. Besides, she may see you laughing, and that would harrow her sensitive soul.”

“Professor, I didn’t think it of you!” said Dick, trying to check his merriment. “You are smashed on the lady from Boston – and you’re married. Have you forgotten that?”

“Alas, no! I can never forget it! But do not use such vulgar and offensive language. ‘Smashed!’ Shocking! You do not understand me. She is my ideal, my affinity, the soul of my soul! Yet I must worship her from afar; for, as you say, I am a married man. I have talked with her; I have heard the music of her voice; I have listened to the pearls of wisdom which dropped from her sweet lips. But I haven’t told her I am married. It wasn’t necessary. Even if I were to know her better, even if I were to become her friend, being a man of honor, that friendship would be purely platonic.”

“Rats!” said Brad. “You’re sure in a bad way, professor. Why, that old lady with the hatchet face would scare a dog into a fit.”

“Bradley!” exclaimed Zenas indignantly. “How dare you speak of Miss Ketchum in such a manner! She is a lofty-minded, angelic girl.”

“Girl!” gasped Dick. “Oh, professor! Girl! Oh, ha, ha, ha! She’s sixty if she’s a minute!”

“Sixty-five!” asserted Brad, slapping his thigh and joining in the merriment.

“Stop it!” spluttered the old pedagogue. “She’s looking this way now! She’ll see you laughing. She’s had trouble enough with that little, dried-up, old duffer from Mississippi, who has followed her about like a puppy dog.”

“You mean Major Mowbry Fitts?” said Dick.

“Fitts – that’s the man. They’re all majors or colonels down in Mississippi. He’s no more a major than I am a general.”

“But he’s a fire eater,” declared Dick. “He is a very dangerous man, professor, and you want to be careful. He’s fearfully jealous of Miss Ketchum, too. Followed her all the way from the United States, they say. I’ve seen him glaring at you in a manner that has caused my blood to run cold.”

“Let him glare! Who’s afraid of that withered runt! Why, I could take him over my knee and spank him. I’d enjoy doing it, too! What is he thinking of? How can he fancy such a superbly beautiful woman as Miss Ketchum could fancy him, even for a moment! Besides, he is a drinking man, and Miss Ketchum is a prohibitionist. She told me so herself.”

“Be careful that she doesn’t smell your breath after you take your medicine, professor,” advised Dick. “But I suppose there is no danger of that now, for the voyage is practically ended.”

“Yes,” sighed Zenas. “We soon must part, but I shall always carry her image in my heart.”

“This certain is the worst case I’ve struck in a long while,” said Brad.

“She comes!” breathed Zenas, in sudden excitement. “She comes this way! Behave yourselves, boys! Be young gentlemen. Don’t cause me to blush for your manners.”

Miss Sarah Ann Ketchum, tall, angular, and painfully plain, came stalking along the deck, peering through her gold-rimmed spectacles, which were perched on the extreme elevation of her camel-back nose.

“Steady, Brad!” warned Dick. “Keep your face straight.”

Miss Ketchum had her eye on the professor; he had his eye on her. She smiled and bowed; he doffed his hat and scraped. Like a prancing colt he advanced to meet her.

“Does not this panoramic spectacle of the Orient arouse within your innermost depths unspeakable emotions, both ecstatic and execrable, Professor Gunn?” asked the lady from Boston. “As you gaze on these shores can you not feel your quivering inner self writhing with the shocking realization of the innumerable excruciating horrors which have stained the shuddering years during which the power of the Turk has been supreme in this sanguine land? Do you not hear within the citadel of your soul a clarion call to duty?

“Are you not oppressed by an intense and all-controlling yearning to do something for the poor, downtrodden Armenians who have been mercilessly ground beneath the iron heel of these heartless hordes of the sultan? I know you do! I have seen it in your countenance, molded by noble and lofty thoughts and towering and exalted ambitions, which lift you to sublime heights far above the swarming multitudes of common earthy clay. Have I not stated your attitude on this stupendous subject to the infinitesimal fraction of a mathematical certainty, professor?”