11 o'clock in the morning
Dad thanked me for helping him out of that scrape by claiming he was the agent of a financial syndicate that wanted to lend money to the sultan . If I had said dad was a collecting agency , to make the sultan pay up , they would have sentenced him to be boiled in oil . Well , we thought we had been in trouble before , but we are in it now worse than ever . We heard at the hotel that at 11 o'clock in the morning the sultan would pass by in a carriage , with an escort , on the way to a mosque , to pray to Allah , and everybody could see the sultan , so we got a place on a balcony , and at the appointed time the procession came in sight . It was imposing , but solemn , and the people on both sides of the street acted like they do in America when the funeral of a great man is passing . No man spoke , and all looked as though they expected , if they moved , to be arrested and have a stone tied to their feet and thrown into the Bosphorus , the way they kill one of the sultan 's wives when she flirts with a stranger . We watched the soldiers , and finally the carriage of the sultan came , and in it was a dried up man , with liver complaint , with a nose like an eagle , and eyes like shoe buttons .