"Why not?"
"Because we are married men and have children."
"I cannot help you."
"Yes, Effendi, you can; you might speak to the Caimacan, and he could free us from military service."
"His duty is to send you to the front," observed the doctor.
"Yes, but he evidently likes the Frank, for we saw them riding together, and if the Effendi would only ask him, he could not be so inhospitable as to decline."
I was a little annoyed at this remark, and observed,—
"I certainly shall not ask for anything of the kind. Other people who have wives and children are obliged to go, then why not you?"
"But they did not love their wives so much as we love ours," persisted the man.
The Caimacan now called. Upon his arrival the four visitors, after grovelling almost in the dust before him, took their departure.