'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎399] (454/714)

THE SHAH—ROYAL FAMILY—MINISTERS
399
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brilliant schemes, and the lumber-rooms of the palace are not
more full of broken mechanism and discarded bric-a-brac than are
the pigeon-holes of the government bureaux of abortive reforms
and dead fiascoes.
More curious, and, in a sense, more childlike still, is the Shah's
well-known partiality for a pun, or still more for a practical joke.
Sense of His sense of humour is easily operated upon, and does
humour no t err on the side of refinement. It is recorded that he
was immensely tickled upon one occasion, when he asked the
reason for the removal of some lamps which had lighted the
approach to one of the palaces, and received the reply that it was
' parce que le clmt (Shah) voit toujours mieux dans la nuit.' He
is even more pleased, however, when he can victimise his ministers
or courtiers by some successful ruse. Having procured a number
of skater and bicj cles, he compelled the luckless grandees to
perform upon these strange instruments in the palace garden to
his own intense amusement. Well known, too, is the story of the
collapsible india-rubber boat, which was presented to him by an
English officer, and in which he sent a dozen A.D.C.'s and
chamberlains out for a row, on the tank in the royal garden.
Meanwhile, he had secretly ordered the valve to be opened, and
the boat duly collapsed in mid-lake, leaving the richly-dressed
courtiers floundering in the water. Nor do the titled members of
the royal household by any means fill sinecure offices, for the Shah
will sometimes, when out in the country, require them to prepare
his meal with their own elegant hands.
Strongest of all these proclivities is the extreme fondness of
the Shah for animals, which is pushed to a point that recalls the
Fancy for story of C aligula and his horse. Cats have been the
animals especial object of this strange attachment. For one of
these creatures was kept a baggage horse, which carried a specially
constructed cage with velvet-padded wires. On another occasion, one
of the royal cats fell asleep on the coat-tails of a courtier, who, with
true diplomacy, cut off' the offending skirt rather than disturb the
slumbers of the favourite. Another cat had a pension of 400/. a
yeai settled upon it in old age. One of the Shah s wives is said
to have originally commended herself to his fancy by her devotion
to the feline favourite of the hour. Quite the funniest, however,
of the anecdotes illustrating this innocent, if uncommon taste, is
that of the lioness who gave birth to cubs in the royal menagerie
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