et the confidences which I needed.
We've got to be at the heart of the show, taking a real hand and not
just looking on. So I settled I would be a big engineer--there was a
time when there weren't many bigger in the United States than John S.
Blenkiron. I talked large about what might be done in Mesopotamia in
the way of washing the British down the river. Well, that talk caught
on. They knew of my reputation as an hydraulic expert, and they were
tickled to death to rope me in. I told them I wanted a helper, and I
told them about my friend Richard Hanau, as good a German as ever
supped sauerkraut, who was coming through Russia and Rumania as a
benevolent neutral; but when he got to Constantinople would drop his
neutrality and double his benevolence. They got reports on you by wire
from the States--I arranged that before I left London. So you're going
to be welcomed and taken to their bosoms just like John S. was. We've
both got jobs we can hold down, and now you're in these pretty clothes
you're the dead ringer of the brightest kind of American engineer ...
But we can't go back on our tracks. If we wanted to leave for
Constanza next week they'd be very polite, but they'd never let us.
We've got to go on with this adventure and nose our way down into
Mesopotamia, hoping that our luck will hold ... God knows how we will
get out of it; but it's no good going out to meet trouble. As I
observed before, I believe in an all-wise and beneficent Providence,
but you've got to give him a chance.'

I am bound to confess the prospect staggered me. We might be let in
for fighting--and worse than fighting--against our own side. I wondered
if it wouldn't be better to make a bolt for it, and said SO.

He shook his head. 'I reckon not. In the first place we haven't
finished our inquiries. We've got Greenmantle located right enough,
thanks to you, but we still know mighty little about that holy man. In
the second place it won't be as bad as you think. This show lacks
cohesion, Sir. It is not going to last for ever. I calculate that
before you and I strike the site of the garden that Adam and Eve
frequented there will be a queer turn of affairs. Anyhow, it's good
enough to gamble on.'

Then he got some sheets of paper and drew me a plan of the dispositions
of the Turkish forces. I had no notion he was such a close student of
war, for his exposition was as good as a staff lecture. He made out
that the situation was