volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

Antica Dealers in Baghddd. 123
bought from them the previous year would have been
confiscated, and they were very angry with me for
causing the tablets to leave Baghdad in the " Comet,"
for they intended to buy them cheap from the Customs
authorities and sell them again at a large profit. Three
of them came to me and complained that in reporting
the watchmen and their thefts from the Trustees' sites,
and thus, causing their dismissal, I had slandered and
calumniated " poor but honest Christians," and they
hinted that they would prosecute me in the courts of
Baghdad. Worst of all from their point of view, they
said that in depriving these same " poor but honest
Christians " of their official positions as watchmen and
overseers employed by the British Government, I had
destroyed their own chance of obtaining collections of
tablets from the watchmen and so ruined their business.
They then went on to say that as they could prove that
I had destroyed their business, they could obtain heavy
damages against me in the law courts, and most likely
get me imprisoned, but they had so great an affection
for me that they would rather lose everything they had
in the world than cause me trouble. Since the day of
their dismissal the world had become black to them,
their cloaks were shame and their head cloths disgrace.
If only I would telegraph to London and get them
reinstated as watchmen and overseers, not only would
the world become bright again and they would array
themselves in joy and gladness, but they and their sons
and grandsons would do business with me and my sons
and my grandsons, and they would procure me such
important tablets that my ism (renown) would reach
to the ends of the world. I told them in answer to
their thrieats and cajolings that they were at liberty to
bring any action they pleased against me in the law
courts of Baghdad, but that it was far better business
for them to bring to me the wonderful tablets of which
they had spoken and let me buy them without delay.
To this they said that they had no tablets to sell, for I
had destroyed their business, and that even if they had
they would sell them to anybody, French, Germans or