I sat at my table unnoticed for fully an hour. At last, an ill-shapen feminine individual advanced and, in broken English supplemented with portions of French, asked me to join her crowd in an adjacent room in some refreshments. I accepted. I considered that I was not a fool and could take care of myself, and decided that I would investigate the place to the limit. I joined this select party of eight. Liquid began to flow freely and all were very solicitous that I should drink my fill. Being suspicious of the whole proceeding I decided to drink nothing. I had fears of being drugged, robbed and thrown out in an alley to spend the night. My fears were well founded. The gang became more and more intoxicated. They reached the point where they evidently thought that I was ripe to pluck, and two of them ventured to separate me from my money. It would have been a fruitless effort, if it had been allowed to proceed to its consummation, for I had left all my coin, with the exception of a small amount, in my hand bag at the steamship office. My assailants plunged towards me like huge tigers. They were so drunk that they were helpless. I handled them like a pair of twin punching bags and left the room and the Paris Café with one man stretched out so flat that he looked like an inlaid design on the floor, while his co-partner was so completely pasted against the side of the room as to be hardly distinguishable from a figure on the wall paper. After this clean-up I calmly walked out of the joint, ordered a hack, drove to town, put up at a little Greek hotel and had a good night's sleep.
In the morning I boarded the Greek steamer ΙΣΜΗΝΗ. My bunk consisted of nothing more than a niche in the side of the ship—similar bunks being occupied by a score of Greeks—and my food was a supply of tinned goods I had purchased in Constantinople. The next day at sunrise we were off the shore of the Dardanelles, and here we spent most of the morning waiting for the sea to subside in order to land a herd of cattle and a small flock of unhealthy-looking sheep. The sea continued to rage and it was not long before our common sleeping compartment presented a most distressing scene, with a Greek chorus which so affected me that I nearly joined the regurgitating throng myself.
A Market in Constantinople
Early the third day the Greek ship arrived at Piræus, the port of Athens, and without stopping I betook myself by electric car to the capital. I went directly to the "American School of Classical Studies" where I presented a letter of introduction to Dr. Clyde Phaar. This gentleman—for he surely was one—conducted me about the city of Athens and I spent two most interesting days visiting the Acropolis, the Olympieion, the Theatre of Dionysis and many other ancient structures.
On leaving Dr. Phaar I returned to my old level and picked up a couple of Greek peasants who led me to their various haunts. One evening, after a seven-cent meal (consisting of stewed liver, kidney and other entrails) in the most unsanitary restaurant I ever saw, I left Athens for Patras, laden with many introductory letters from my Athenian friends to Grecian fruit vendors and candy fabricants in New York City.
After travelling all day, with an hour's delay at Corinth, due to a defective engine—which time I utilised by sight-seeing—I arrived at Patras in the evening. I was besieged by an army of hotel men as I was leaving the station and nearly landed in jail, instead of an hotel, for beating up an especially persistent hawker. However, I managed to find an hotel and I spread myself to the extent of eating a first-class dinner, the first food for the day. With this meal safely placed away I strolled up the street. I was ambling aimlessly along; my thoughts had drifted to America, when I was attracted by a Greek of about thirty years, who called to me from across the street, addressing me as "Charlie." As there was nothing on the calendar, I responded to my new name and crossed over to see what the native wanted.
"Where are you going, Charlie?" he asked.