his telegraph instrument. I shall never forget the picture; this huge Turk, sitting there in his gray pajamas and his red fez, working industriously his own telegraph key, his young wife gazing at him through a little window and the late afternoon sun streaming into the room. Evidently the ruler of Turkey was having his troubles, and, as the argument went on over the telegraph, Talaat would bang his key with increasing irritation. He told me that the pompous major at the station insisted on having Enver's written orders — since orders over the wire might easily be counterfeited. It took Talaat some time to locate Enver, and then the dispute apparently started all over again. A piece of news which Talaat received at that moment over the wire almost ruined my case. After a prolonged thumping of his instrument, in the course of which Talaat's face lost its geniality and became almost savage, he turned to me and said:
"The English bombarded the Dardanelles this morning and killed two Turks!"
And then he added:
"We intend to kill three Christians for every Moslem killed!"
For a moment I thought that everything was lost. Talaat's face reflected only one emotion — hatred of the English. Afterward, when reading the Cromer report on the Dardanelles, I found that the British Committee stigmatized this early attack as a mistake, since it gave the Turks an early warning of their plans. I can testify that it was a mistake for another reason, for I now found that these few strange shots almost destroyed my plans to get the foreign residents out of Turkey. Talaat was enraged, and I had to go over much of the
