undertaken
to deposit more to my account at the Ottoman Bank. I called at that
establishment daily and found news of no remittance. I was in the
meantime vainly moving the Turkish authorities for a _teskerai_, which
would authorise me to go up country. No remittance, no leave to move,
the hotel bill growing to really alarming proportions, the outlook was
unpleasant; in a while it had grown no less than desperate. I bombarded
the Chicago man with cablegrams as long as I could afford it, but no
answer came, nor have I, from that day to this, received any explanation
of the circumstances which induced him to send me out and then to leave
me stranded. I had already made application to the British Consul, Mr
Fawcett, afterwards Sir John, to secure for me a passage home, when I
was delivered from my embarrassments by as remarkable a chance as ever
befell me in my life. After leaving the Consul's office, I strolled
into the Valori gardens, which were a dreary waste of small pebbles and
coarse gravel, with an oasis here and there consisting of a painted iron
table and a few painted iron chairs, where men of all nationalities
sat sipping vishnap and limoni, and extinguishing by their Babylonian
chatter the strains of a very indifferent band. I was making the circuit
of the gardens in tolerably low spirits; I had expended my last piastre,
had emptied my cigar-case, had listened to a violent objurgation from
the landlord of the Byzance Hotel and was now bound home at the expense
of the Consular funds--a failure confessed. Nobody likes to be beaten,
and it seemed to me at that moment that I tasted the full flavour of
ignominy, and whilst I was floundering in the depths of my despondency
I heard a voice speaking in English. "There you are--the _Weekly
Dispatch_--Constantinople in a state of siege. If I could find the man
who wrote that article, I should like to commission him to-morrow." Now
it happened that I had written that article and had sent it home within
a day or two of my arrival. I had not even known that it had been
accepted and the revival of hope ran through me like an electric shock.
I claimed the article for my own and in ten minutes I had concluded
a bargain with the authorised agent of the _Scotsman_, had agreed
to accept the services of an interpreter, and had arranged, with a
_taskerai_ or without one, to take the 7.30 train to Adrianople from
the Stamboul station. There followed a hurried interview with the
Vice-