In any case Harrington told the boy that the bad
Sultan was in the habit of sending his soldiers to shoot people, and
burn down their homes, and take away everything they had to eat, and put
all the women into jail. He hesitated over the children. It was out of
the question to tell Bob how, by order of the bad Sultan, little
children were ripped open before their mothers' eyes, or had their
brains dashed out against the walls. The little children, Harrington
finally told Bob, were whipped by the bad Sultan's bad soldiers, and had
all their toys confiscated.
But that apparently was not enough. Bob wanted to know what else the bad
Sultan did to the little children. What else? Harrington's criminal
imagination had exhausted itself. He didn't know, and he called upon Bob
for suggestions.
"He gives them medicine," said Bob, "and sprays their throats with
peroxide, and they cry." Was there any after-thought in that remark,
Harrington wondered. Could it be that he had only succeeded in arousing
in that active young mind the recognition of a certain family
resemblance between himself and Abdul the Damned? For that matter, was
it fair to the late Commander of the Faithful to charge his name with a
crime he was probably innocent of? But then again, if that particular
crime was necessary to the lesson borne in on Bob, why hesitate? So
Harrington ponders a moment and decides; yes, even to that level of
iniquity had Abdul Hamid II sunk.
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