第22章 GRAND CROSS OF THE CRESCENT(8)

"If it is worth doing at all it is worth doing well.To-day the Sultan will command that the "Rise and Fall" be translated into Arabic, and that it be placed in the national library.Moreover, the University of Constantinople, the College of Salonica, and the National Historical Society have each elected Doctor Gilman an honorary member.I proposed him, the Patriarch of Mesopotamia seconded him.And the Turkish ambassador in America has been instructed to present the insignia with his own hands."Nor was Peter or Stimson idle.To assist Stetson in his press-work, and to further the idea that all Europe was now clamoring for the "Rise and fall," Peter paid an impecunious but over-educated dragoman to translate it into five languages, and Stimson officially wrote of this, and of the bestowal of the Crescent to the State Department.He pointed out that not since General Grant had passed through Europe had the Sultan so highly honored an American.He added he had been requested by the grand vizier --who had been requested by Prince Abdul--to request the State Department to inform Doctor Gilman of these high honors.A request from such a source was a command and, as desired, the State Department wrote as requested by the grand vizier to Doctor Gilman, and tendered congratulations.The fact was sent out briefly from Washington by Associated Press.This official recognition by the Government and by the newspapers was all and more than Stetson wanted.He took off his coat and with a megaphone, rather than a pen, told the people of the United States who Doctor Gilman was, who the Sultan was, what a Grand Cross was, and why America's greatest historian was not without honor save in his own country.Columns of this were paid for and appeared as "patent insides," with a portrait of Doctor Gilman taken from the STILLWATER COLLEGE ANNUAL, and a picture of the Grand Cross drawn from imagination, in eight hundred newspapers of the Middle, Western, and Eastern States.special articles, paragraphs, portraits, and pictures of the Grand Cross followed, and, using Stillwater as his base, Stetson continued to flood the country.Young Hines, the local correspondent, acting under instructions by cable from Peter, introduced him to Doctor Gilman as a traveller who lectured on Turkey, and one who was a humble admirer of the author of the "Rise and fall." Stetson, having studied it as a student crams an examination, begged that he might sit at the feet of the master.And for several evenings, actually at his feet, on the steps of the ivy-covered cottage, the disguised press-agent drew from the unworldly and unsuspecting scholar the simple story of his life.To this, still in his character as disciple and student, he added photographs he himself made of the master, of the master's ivy-covered cottage, of his favorite walk across the campus, of the great historian at work at his desk, at work in his rose garden, at play with his wife on the croquet lawn.These he held until the insignia should be actually presented.This pleasing duty fell to the Turkish ambassador, who, much to his astonishment, had received instructions to proceed to Stillwater, Massachusetts, a place of which he had never heard, and present to a Doctor Gilman, of whom he had never heard, the Grand Cross of the Crescent.As soon as the insignia arrived in the official mail-bag a secretary brought it from Washington to Boston, and the ambassador travelled down from Bar Harbor to receive it, and with the secretary took the local train to Stillwater.

The reception extended to him there is still remembered by the ambassador as one of the happiest incidents of his distinguished career.Never since he came to represent his imperial Majesty in the Western republic had its barbarians greeted him in a manner in any way so nearly approaching his own idea of what was his due.

"This ambassador," Hines had explained to the mayor of Stillwater, who was also the proprietor of its largest department store, "is the personal representative of the Sultan.So we've got to treat him right.""It's exactly," added Stetson, "as though the Sultan himself were coming.""And so few crowned heads visit Stillwater," continued Hines, "that we ought to show we appreciate this one, especially as he comes to pay the highest honor known to Europe to one of our townsmen."The mayor chewed nervously on his cigar.

"What'd I better do?" he asked.

"Mr.Stetson here," Hines pointed out, "has lived in Turkey, and he knows what they expect.Maybe he will help us.""Will you?" begged the mayor.

"I will," said Stetson.

Then they visited the college authorities.Chancellor Black and most of the faculty were on their vacations.But there were half a dozen professors still in their homes around the campus, and it was pointed out to them that the coming honor to one lately of their number reflected glory upon the college and upon them, and that they should take official action.

It was also suggested that for photographic purposes they should wear their academic robes, caps, and hoods.To these suggestions, with alacrity--partly because they all loved Doctor Gilman and partly because they had never been photographed by a moving-picture machine--they all agreed.So it came about that when the ambassador, hot and cross and dusty stepped off the way-train at Stillwater station he found to his delighted amazement a red carpet stretching to a perfectly new automobile, a company of the local militia presenting arms, a committee, consisting of the mayor in a high hat and white gloves and three professors in gowns and colored hoods, and the Stillwater silver Cornet Band playing what, after several repetitions, the ambassador was graciously pleased to recognize as his national anthem.