Then we continued without comment to study other photographs. There were at least several hundred. They were all of Ginkel. Most of them were blurred and showed odds and ends of backgrounds out of focus, such as trees, street cars, buildings, telephone poles. There was one that finally aroused Ginkel to comment:
"This would have been a good one, but it got light struck," he said. "It was taken in Bagdad."
* * * * *
When we had exhausted the album Ginkel felt more at ease. He offered me some tobacco from his pouch. I resumed the original line of questioning.
"Did you have any unusual adventures during your travels or did you get any ideas that we could fix up for a story," I asked.
"Well," said Ginkel, "I was always a camera bug, you know. I guess that's what gave me the bug for travelling. To take pictures, you know. I got a lot more than these, but I ain't mounted them yet."
"Are they like the ones in the book."
"Not quite so good, most of them," Ginkel answered. "They were taken when
I hadn't had much experience."
"You must have been in Russia while the revolution was going on, weren't you?"
"Oh, yes. I got one there." He opened the book again. "Here," he said.
"This was in Moscow. I was in Moscow when this was taken."