Bob is Harrington's youngest son. He and Abdul Hamid II first met in the
pages of a fat new history of the Turkish Revolution having a white
star and crescent on the cover and perhaps half a hundred pictures
inside. The book immediately supplanted the encyclopaedia and General
Kuropatkin's illustrated memoirs of the Russo-Japanese War, in Bob's
affections. Who, he wanted to know, was the swarthy, lean, hook-nosed
gentleman in a tasselled cap, who stood up in a carriage to acknowledge
the cheers of the crowd. That, Harrington told him, was a bad Sultan,
and tried to turn to the next picture, which showed an unhappy-looking
Armenian priest casting his first vote for a member of Parliament.
But the boy has for some years been in the stage where every fact laid
before him must be backed up with an adequate reason. What does a bad
Sultan do, he wished to know. Harrington was puzzled. It seemed a pity
to bring Bob into touch with the cruelties and pains of life. But on the
other hand here was a chance to inoculate Bob at a very early age with
a hatred for tyranny and oppression, and a love for the principles of
representative government; and on the whole I am inclined to think
Harrington did right.
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