Part 16 (1/2)

'Maybe you can,' I said; 'but observe the situation I ah toluol to blow up this countryside If you dare to coiment I will tell you what I'll do I'll fire this stuff, and I reckon they'll be picking up the bits of you and your regiment off the Gallipoli Peninsula'

He had put up a bluff-a poor one-and I had called it He saw I meant what I said, and became silken

'Good-bye, Sir,' he said 'You have had a fair chance and rejected it We shall ain soon, and you will be sorry for your insolence'

He strutted away and it was all I could do to keep fro after hiot safely to Chataldja, and were received by von Oesterzee like long-lost brothers He was the regular gunner-officer, not thinking about anything except his guns and shells I had to wait about three hours while he was checking the stuff with the invoices, and then he gave me a receipt which I still possess I told hiht It didn't ot his stuff safe in any case It was only that the wretched Turks had to pay twice for the lot of it

He gave Peter and ether very civil and inclined to talk about the war I would have liked to hear what he had to say, for it would have been son, but I did not dare to wait Anywire from Rustchuk Finally he lent us a car to take us the few miles to the city

So it came about that at five past three on the 16th day of January, with only the clothes we stood up in, Peter and I entered Constantinople

I was in considerable spirits, for I had got the final lap successfully over, and I was looking forward ht was a hty disappointment I don't quite knohat I had expected-a sort of fairyland Eastern city, all white marble and blue water, and stately Turks in surplices, and veiled houris, and roses and nightingales, and sootten that winter is prettyday, with a south-east wind blowing, and the streets were long troughs of y colonial suburb-wooden houses and corrugated iron roofs, and endless dirty, sallow children There was a cemetery, I rerave Then we got into narrow steep streets which descended to a kind of big canal I sahat I took to be mosques and minarets, and they were about as ie, and paid a penny for the privilege If I had known it was the famous Golden Horn I would have looked at it with es and soondolas Then we came into busier streets, where rah the mud I saw one old felloho looked like my notion of a Turk, but most of the population had the appearance of London old-clothes men All but the soldiers, Turk and German, who see ata word, but clearly not approving of this wet and dirtyfollowed, Cornelis?' he said suddenly, 'ever since we ca dorp'

Peter was infallible in a thing like that The news scared raht it couldn't be that, for if von Oesterzee had wanted me he wouldn't have taken the trouble to stalk me It was more likelya soldier and a German sailor there told me where the Kurdish Bazaar was He pointed up a steep street which ran past a high block of warehouses with everybroken Sandy had said the left-hand side co up We plunged into it, and it was the filthiest place of all The histled up it and stirred the garbage It seeroups of people squatting, with their heads covered, though scarcely a ed in the blank walls

The street corkscrewed endlessly Someti ed its way in Often it was alht where it opened out to the width of a decent lane To find a house in that one a quarter of aany of the croe ue

At last we stumbled on it-a tumble-down coffee house, with A Kuprasso above the door in queer a inside, and two or threeat small wooden tables

We ordered coffee, thick black stuff like treacle, which Peter anatheht it, and I told him in German I wanted to speak to Mr Kuprasso He paid no attention, so I shouted louder at hiht a man out of the back parts

He was a fat, oldish felloith a long nose, very like the Greek traders you see on the Zanzibar coast I beckoned to hi oilily Then I asked hi German, that he would have a sirop

'You are Mr Kuprasso,' I said 'I wanted to show this place to arden-house and the fun there'

'The Signor is arden-house'

'Rot,' I said; 'I've been here before, hts there What was it you called it? Oh, I remember-the Garden-House of Sulier to his lip and looked incredibly sly 'The Signor remembers that But that was in the old happy days before war ca since shut The people here are too poor to dance and sing'

'All the same I would like to have another look at it,' I said, and I slipped an English sovereign into his hand

He glanced at it in surprise and his nor is a Prince, and I will do his will' He clapped his hands and the negro appeared, and at his nod took his place behind a little side-counter

'Follow e, which was pitch dark and very unevenly paved Then he unlocked a door and with a swirl the wind caught it and blew it back on us

We were looking into awall, evidently of great age, with bushes growing in the cracks of it Soy myrtles stood in broken pots, and nettles flourished in a corner At one end was a wooden building like a dissenting chapel, but painted a dingy scarlet Its s and skylights were black with dirt, and its door, tied up with rope, flapped in the wind

'Behold the Pavilion,' Kuprasso said proudly