ish, Yiddish, or Greek, and you
cannot understand him, there is some excuse, but when he instantly
renews the attack in both French and Spanish, it is disheartening. It
makes you regret that when you were in college the only foreign language
you studied was football signals.

[Illustration: Outside the Citadel, which is mediaeval, Salonika is
modern and Turkish.]

At any time, without the added presence of 100,000 Greeks and 170,000
French and English, Salonika appears overpopulated. This is partly
because the streets are narrow and because in the streets everybody
gathers to talk, eat, and trade. As in all Turkish cities, nearly every
shop is an "open shop." The counter is where the window ought to be, and
opens directly upon the sidewalk. A man does not enter the door of a
shop, he stands on the sidewalk, which is only thirty-six inches wide,
and makes his purchase through the window. This causes a crowd to
collect. Partly because the man is blocking the sidewalk, but chiefly
because there is a chance that something may be bought and paid for.
In normal times, if Salonika is ever normal, she has a population of
120,000, and every one of those 120,000 is personally interested in
any one else who engages, or may be about to engage, in a money
transaction. In New York, if a horse falls down there is at once an
audience of a dozen persons; in Salonika the downfall of a horse is
nobody's business, but a copper coin changing hands is everybody's.
Of this local characteristic, John T. McCutcheon and I made a careful
study; and the result of our investigations produced certain statistics.
If in Salonika you buy a newspaper from a news-boy, of the persons
passing, two will stop; if at an open shop you buy a package of
cigarettes, five people will look over your shoulder; if you pay your
cab-driver his fare, you block the sidewalk; and if you try to change a
hundred-franc note, you cause a riot. In each block there are nearly a
half dozen money-changers; they sit in little shops as narrow as a
doorway, and in front of them is a show-case filled with all the moneys
of the world. It is not alone the sight of your hundred-franc note that
enchants the crowd. That collects the crowd; but what holds the crowd
is that it knows there are twenty different kinds of money, all current
in Salonika, into which your note can be changed. And they know the
money-changer knows that and that you do not. So each man advises you.
Not because he