odforsaken
country of the czar. If the bombs hold out I do not think there will
be a quorum left in Russia in a year, either czars, dukes or anything
except peasants on the verge of starvation and workingmen who have not
the heart to work. I wouldn't take the whole of Russia as a gift, and
have to dodge bombs night and day.

Say, old man, you never dreamed that I knew all about you and dad
joining the Masons that time, but I watched you and dad giving each
other signs and grips, and whispering passwords into each other's ears,
in the grocery, nights, after you had locked up. I thought, at the time,
that you and dad were planning a burglary, but when you both went to the
lodge one night and stayed till near morning, and dad came home with a
red Turkish fez and told ma that you and he had joined the shrine, which
was the highest degree in Masonry, and you and he were nobles, and all
that rot, I was on to you bigger than a house, and you couldn't fool me
when you and dad winked at each other and talked about crossing the hot
sands of the desert.

Well, dad brought his red fez along, 'cause I think he expected he would
meet shriners all over the world, that he could borrow money of. When we
struck Constantinople and dad saw that every last one of the Turks wore
a red fez, he felt as though he had got among shriners, and he got his
fez out of his trunk and he wears it all the time.

Dad acts as familiar with the Turks here as though he owned a harem. We
go to the low streets, about as wide as a street car, where Turks are
selling things, with dad wearing his fez, and he begins to make motions
and give grand hailing signs of distress, and the Turks look at him
as though he had robbed a bank, and they charge enormous prices for
everything, and dad pays with a smile, thinking his brother Masons are
fairly giving things away. He looks upon all men who wear the fez as his
brothers, and they look at him as though he was crazy in the head.

The only trouble is that dad insists on talking to the women here
without an introduction, and a woman in Turkey had rather die than
have a Christian dog look at her. Dad was buying some wormy figs of a
merchant, who was seated on the floor of his shop, and giving him signs,
when a curtain behind the Turk was pulled one side and a woman with
beautiful eyes and her face covered with a veil, came out with a cup of
coffee for the Turk. Dad shook hands with her, and said: "Your husband
and I bel