Jack Harkaway’s Boy Tinker Among The Turks; Being the Conclusion of the “Adventures of Young Jack Harkaway and His Boy Tinker”, by Bracebridge Hemyng. Book Number Fifteen. Chicago: M. A. Donohue & Company, [no date, published ca. 1915]
Bracebridge Hemyng (1841-1901) wrote several series of Jack Harkaway books.
This book starts just before Chapter 60, but ends the story of Young Jack Harkaway. Hemyng later resurrected the Harkaway character as an older man with a young son.
It’s considered a boy’s adventure book, but there’s a lot of laddish behavior going on — hookah smoking and all that… The scene with “the orphan” and the Turk and the flute is quite funny, and appears made for filming (see below the fold for a long excerpt)
Thanks to anonymous for post-processing this project.
It was night.
Mr. Figgins was in bed, but he could get no sleep.
Curious insects, common to Eastern climes, crawled forth from chinks in the walls and cracks in the floor, and nibbled the orphan in various parts of his anatomy till he felt as if the surface of his skin was one large blister.
“What a dreadful climate is this,” he murmured, as he sat up in bed; “nothing but creeping things everywhere. Phew! what’s to be done?”
He reflected a moment.
“I have it I” he exclaimed, “my flute, my precious flute, that will soothe me.”
Hopping nimbly out of bed, he dressed himself in his European costume, seized his instrument, and began a tune.
He had been playing all day long, and the other lodgers in the house were congratulating themselves on the cessation of the infliction, when suddenly the instrumental torture commenced again.
“Too-too, too-tum-too, tooty-tum, tooty-tum, too-tum-too,” went the flute, in a more shrill and vigorous manner than ever, whilst a select party of dogs, attracted by the melody, assembled under the window and howled in concert.
In the chamber next to that occupied by the infatuated Figgins lodged a Turk, Bosja by name.
Bosja, in the first place, had no taste for music, and particularly detested the sound of a flute.
Secondly, he was suffering from an excruciating toothache, and the incessant too-tum, too-tum, tooty-tum-too–with the additional music of the dogs–drove him mad.
He was sitting up with his pipe in his mouth, and a green, yellow-striped turban pulled down over his ears, trying to shut out the sound, but in vain.
“Oh, oh! Allah be merciful to me!” he groaned, as the irritated nerve gave him an extra twinge.
“Too-too, too-tum-too, too-tum, too-tum, tooty-tum-too,” from the orphan’s flute answered him.
“Allah confound the wretch with his tooty-tum-too!” growled the distracted sufferer; “if he only knew what I am enduring.”
But this Mr. Figgins did not know.
Probably he would not have cared if he had known, and he continued to pour forth melodious squeakings to his own entire satisfaction.
At length the patience of Bosja was utterly exhausted, and he summoned the landlady.
“What son of Shitan have you got in the next room?” he demanded of her, fiercely.
“I know very little of him,” returned the mistress of the house; “only that he is a Frankish gentleman, who dresses sometimes as a Turk, and has lately come to lodge here.”
“He is a dog, and the son of a dog! May his flute choke him, and his father’s grave be defiled!” growled the irascible Turk, “tell him to leave off, or I will kill him and burn his flute.”
The landlady went at once and tapped at the door of the musical lodger.
There was no response save the too-too-too of the flute.
“Signor!” she called after a moment
“What’s the matter?” inquired Mr. Figgins from within; “do you wish me to come and play you a tune?” and he then continued “too-too, tooty-too.”
“The gentleman in the next room objects to the sound of your flute.”
“Does he?–tooty-too, tooty-too.”
“Yes; and he begs you’ll leave off.”
“I shan’t!–tooty-tum, tooty-tum, tooty-too. I intend to play all night.”
The landlady, having delivered her message, went downstairs.
Mr. Figgins still continued to blow away and the agonized Bosja to mutter curses not loud, but deep, upon his head and his instrument.
But patience has its limits, and Bosja, never remarkable for that virtue, having sworn all the oaths he knew twice over, at last sprang from his bed, and dashing down his pipe, rapped fiercely at the wall.
“What do you want? Shall I come and play a few tunes to you?” inquired the orphan, placidly pausing for an instant.
“You vile son of perdition, stop that accursed noise!” shouted the Turk.
“Too-too, tooty-too.”
“Do you hear, unbelieving dog?”
“Tooty-too–yes, I hear–tooty-tooty-tooty-too.”
“Then why don’t you stop?”
“Because I intend to go on–too-tum-too–all night”
“But you’re driving me to distraction.”
“Nonsense; go to bed and sleep–tooty-tum, tooty-tum, tooty-too. You will like the beautiful flute in time.”
“But I can’t sleep with that infernal tooty-too in any ears, and I’ve got the toothache.”
“Have it out. You’ll feel better.”
This cool irony on the part of Mr. Figgins was like oil poured upon the fierce temper of the irascible Bosja, and he shouted loudly–
“If I hear any more of that diabolical ‘tootum-too,’ I swear by Allah I’ll take your life, and give your body to the crows and vultures.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed the reckless Figgins. “Tooty-tum, tooty-tum, too-tum——”
But before he could finish his musical phrase, the maddened Bosja had seized his scimitar, and rushed like a bull at the partition.
The partition was thin, the Turk was burly and thick, and he plunged through head first into the orphan’s apartment, to the no little surprise and dismay of the latter.
It was quite a picture.
Bosja waved his weapon over his head; Mark Antony Figgins hopped upon the bed and wrapped himself tightly round in the clothes, clutching his flute to his side.
For a moment the pair stood glaring at each other.
“Your flute, vile dog, or your life,” shouted the Turk.
“I object to part with either,” cried the orphan. “Go and have your tooth out, and be happy.”
Down came the scimitar with a swish in the direction of his head.
But the grocer had quickly withdrawn it beneath the clothes.
Not to be thwarted, however, in his vengeance, the burly Bosja swooped down upon the heap, and dragged them up in his grasp, the orphan included.
“Now I have you,” he cried, as he seized the obnoxious flute.
“Give me my instrument, infidel,” shrieked the orphan, as he threw off the blanket, and clung to the flute with desperation.
At the same moment, he recognised the green and yellow-striped turban on the head of the Turk.
It was Bosja into whose hands it had fallen, when Mr. Figgins was escaping from the mob.
“That is my turban,” he cried, as with one hand he dragged it from his enemy’s head, with dauntless vehemence, and bringing his flute down with a smart crack on the Turk’s bald pate.
The Turk, who was much more of a bully than a hero, was quite confounded at the excited energy which the Frankish lodger displayed. Dropping his scimitar, he then had a struggle for the flute.
Round the room they went, pulling and hauling.
At length, lurching against the door, it burst open.
The combatants now found themselves on the landing.
Here the struggle continued, till, at length, giving a desperate tug, the flute came in half, and Bosja fell backwards, head over heels, down the stairs, with the upper joint of the instrument in his hand.
The landlady, who thought the house was falling, came hurrying to see what had happened, and found the Turk lying in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, with the breath almost knocked out of his body.
It took some time to bring him to himself.
It was just as he was recovering there was a loud knocking at the street door.
On opening it, a body of Turkish soldiers appeared drawn up in front of it.
“What is the cause of this disturbance?” inquired the leader of the troop.
Bosja quickly gave his own version of what had happened.
Of course, it was highly exaggerated.
He, a true believer, had been assaulted, robbed of his turban, and thrown downstairs by a rascally dog of a Giaour, who lodged in a room next to him.
This was quite sufficient to arouse the indignation of the officer, and, with three of his troop, that functionary ascended to seize the delinquent.
But, on reaching the room, it was discovered to be empty.
“The Frankish hound laughs at our beards,” said the officer. “He has escaped by the window.”
And such had been the intention of Mark Antony Figgins.
But not being accustomed to such perilous descents, he had found himself baffled in his flight, and was now perched on a ledge, half way between the window and the ground, unable either to proceed or to return.
He was soon espied by the soldiers, and a shout announced his detection.
A ladder was quickly procured, and the luckless orphan very shortly found himself a prisoner.
“What dirt have you been eating?” demanded the officer, sternly.
“I haven’t been eating dirt at all,” returned the indignant Figgins, “but I believe that fat Turk has swallowed half of my flute.”
Bosja came forward at this with the missing portion in his hand, and handed it to the officer.
The orphan made a snatch at it, but received only a box on the ear from the officer.
The other half of his cherished intrument was wrested from him, and he marched off to the lock-up until the case could be tried on the morrow before the bashaw.