There was one such in Tehran, a well-known cheerful old man, who looked as if he could, in quiet company, tell entertaining stones, for recitation is adopted by some of these wandering dervishes as a pleasant means of livelihood, and many of them in the storytelling art show considerable talent, cultivated taste, and retentive memory.
But, to be successful, they must be able to indulge in variations of their old stories by the introduction of new incidents which they have heard or invented.

One who is known for good style is always welcomed at the many tea-shops and gardens in village and town.
[Illustration: A DERVISH STORY-TELLER OF TEHRAN] In a most unlikely spot, on a long stretch of sand in the Yezd Desert, I met a well-dressed dervish in clean, cool white clothes, who stopped on perceiving that I was a 'Firanghi,' and, gently swaying his neat dervish-dole dish, said quietly, 'Charity; alms are as dew-drops from the heavens,' a most appropriate speech in the sandy waterless waste.
Membership with the higher dervish orders appears to signify and convey something of the character of Freemasonry.

I know of one highly-placed Persian gentleman who is a dervish, and also of a European gentleman of Oriental light and learning who has been admitted to the same order.

A famous Prime Minister of Persia in past time, Haji Mirza Aghasi, was a well-known but rather eccentric dervish.

My knowledge of this was the means, on one occasion, of averting a disagreeable display of violence by a gay sort of madcap, the relative of a post-house master, who had attached himself as groom to the stable establishment.
My smart Armenian servant, who was equally good as groom or table attendant, had taken off his warm pea-jacket to help in bracing up the loads on my baggage post-horses, which were to be driven loose at a canter, the usual practice when riding post with extra baggage.