He was given, in fact, to easy and strange fits of alarm. He always carried a loaded pistol in his trowsers-pocket, though he never used it. On one of his journeys in France, he even took it into his head to make a high court-official walk before him when he left the theatre, carrying a revolver pointed at the peaceable sightseers who had gathered to see him come out. As soon as I saw this, I ran up to the threatening body-guard:

"Put that revolver away," I said. "It's not the custom here."

But I had to insist pretty roughly before he consented to put away his weapon.

The Shah, for that matter, was no less distrustfull of his own subjects; in fact, I observed that, when the Persians were in his presence, they adopted a uniform attitude which consisted in holding their hands crossed on their stomach, no doubt as evidence of their harmless intentions. It was a guarantee of a very casual sort, we must admit.

For the rest, his "alarms" displayed themselves under the most diverse aspects and in the most unexpected circumstances. For instance, there was no persuading him ever to ascend the Eiffel Tower. The disappointment of his guides was increased by the fact that he would come as far as the foot of the pillars; they always thought that he meant to go up. But no: once below the immense iron framework, he gazed up in the air, examined the lifts, flung a timid glance at the staircases, then suddenly turned on his heels and walked away. They told him in vain that his august father had gone up as far as the first floor; nothing could induce him to do as much.

I again remember a day-it was at the time of his second stay in Paris-when, on entering his drawing-room, I found him wearing a very careworn air.

"Paoli," he said, taking my hand and leading me to the window, "look!"

Look as I might, I saw nothing out of the way. Down below, three bricklayers stood on the pavement, talking quietly together.

"What!" said the Shah. "Don't you see those men standing still, down there. They have been there for an hour, talking and watching my window. Paoli, they want to kill me."

Repressing a terrible wish to laugh, I resolved to reassure our guest with a lie:

"Why, I know them!" I replied. "I know their names: they are decent working-men."

Muzaffr-ed-Din's face lit up at once:

"You seem to know everybody," he said, giving me a grateful look.

THE SHAH OF PERSIA

The most amusing incident was that which happened on the occasion of an experiment with radium. I had described to the sovereign, in the course of conversation, the wonderful discovery which our great savant, M. Currie, had just made, a discovery that was called upon to revolutionise science. The Shah was extremely interested by my story and repeatedly expressed a desire to be shown the precious magic stone. Professor Currie was informed accordingly, and, in spite of his stress of work, agreed to come to the élysée Palace H?tel and give an exhibition. As, however, complete darkness was needed for radium to be admired in all its brilliancy, I had with endless trouble persuaded the King of Kings to come down to one of the hotel cellars arranged for the purpose. At the appointed time, His Majesty and all his suite proceeded to the underground apartment in question. Professor Currie closed the door, switched off the electric light and uncovered his specimen of radium, when, suddenly, a shout of terror, resembling at one and the same time the roar of a bull and the yells of a man who is being murdered, rang out, followed by hundreds of similar cries. Amid general excitement and consternation, we flung ourselves upon the electric switches, turned on the lights and beheld a strange sight: in the midst of the prostrate Persians stood the Shah, his arms clinging to the neck of his howling grand vizier, his round pupils dilated to their rims, while he shouted at the top of his voice, in Persian:

"Come away! Come away!"

The switching on of the light calmed this mad anguish as though by magic. Realising the disappointment which he had caused M. Currie, he tried to offer him a decoration by way of compensation; but the austere man of science thought right to decline it.

The instinctive dread of darkness and solitude was so keen in the Persian monarch that he required his bed-room to be filled during the night with light and sound. Accordingly, every evening, as soon as he had lain down and closed his eyes, the members of his suite gathered round his bed, lit all the candelabra and exchanged their impressions aloud, while young nobles of the court, relieving one another in pairs, conscientiously patted his arms and legs with little light, sharp, regular taps. The King of Kings imagined that he was in this way keeping death at a distance, if perchance it should take a fancy to visit him in his sleep, and the extraordinary thing is that he did sleep, notwithstanding all this massage, light and noise.

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