men in the hotel, waiting to learn their fate. They divided themselves into three distinct groups, in three different mess rooms. First, the silent, water-drinking, go-to-bed-at-nine Turks, in the library. Secondly, Americans, in the smoking-room, who left their allegiance to prohibition on the other side of the Atlantic; singing and dancing to the accompaniment of a banjo till the small hours of the morning. Thirdly, at a long table in the dining-room, sat the rest of us—principally business men—Italian, Spanish, Dutch, South American, Frenchmen, or Danes. My only fellow-countryman informed me that among other complications he had come to Smyrna to arrange, he has somehow to explain away the disappearance of 50,000 gallons of pure alcohol, sent from Cuba to Smyrna via New York. The officials in New York had helped themselves to the precious nectar, and sent the cargo on to Smyrna, refilled with water! Such are the trials of prohibition!
One and all, these men have but three topics of conversation: (1) the senseless policy of Mr. Lloyd George in sending the Greeks to Smyrna; (2) the criminal desire of the Turks to abolish capitulations; (3) the "probabilities" of likely successors to the deported Greeks and Armenians in the business world. It is assumed that Turkey cannot survive without the assistance of some European power. The Turk is a producer, not a merchant. The Italians affirm that trade would flourish in a happier world if they were given the vacancy. The Americans, however, dispute this honour, whilst the Dutchman, supported by a Dutch clergyman (born of French parents, but a British subject, in the service of Holland, speaking all three languages without an accent), declares the only power that is "going to count" in Turkey is Great Britain.
"In spite of her deplorable and ill-advised policy, her inexplicable treatment of the Turks, her protection of the Greeks (which has made them more arrogant and destestable than ever), there is something in the British national character which still commands respect and
