- cloth, and—luxury of luxuries—a knife, a fork, and a
mug in which to enjoy some good French wine! The menu, too, was a change: foie gras and sardines, almonds and figs, apples and jam.
"I shall come and dine with you again," said I, lest he should be too shy to invite me.
I found that the colonel and his staff could fully sympathise, from their own experience, with my anathemas upon luggage traffic. I told him "no doubt it was he and his friends who were making those awful 'night noises' that so alarmed me"; and though, of course, he denied it, my story received the tribute of a polite and good-natured laugh.
"I admire your courage," he said again.
"Reserve your judgment. You will have time enough to see later what a combative person I can be."
"Nous verrons."
We reached Eski-Chéir at about nine o'clock, and a telegram announced to the colonel that a special private car was on its way to meet him.
"Now," said he, "I can offer hospitality, not only to you, but to your friends as well."
We went to a café for tea, where numbers of Turks, wearing kalpaks, were singing patriotic songs. Directly they had finished, I clapped my hands, crying: "M. Kemal Pasha, Chok Guzel," and their delight was obvious.
"Poor fellows," said the colonel, whom I began to find sympathetic, "it needs such a tiny effort; they will respond to the least hint of real sympathy."
There is nothing sordid about this little tumble-down café, though its floors are thick with mud and the attendants are charmingly shabby. "At least," I said, "this dirt and discomfort is artistic. . . . What artist would dream of painting an American sky-scraper, luxurious and comfortable though it be? Yet here one could cover the walls of an exhibition from one day's experience. The picturesque water-pots, the quaint trays, the artistic tea-glasses and coffee-cups, the colouring of the costumes.
