‘We allow no strong drink in this house,’ remarked Mr. Bond.
‘So I perceive,’ I replied.
‘Do you smoke?’
‘I can do without tobacco quite easily.’
Condition three was a compromise. ‘We do not send for our post on Sundays,’ said the missionary.
‘I can go for my own letters.’
‘You attend service?’
‘I do.’
The room I got for my goodness was on the first floor. It held a big downy bed, wherein one could roll about without danger or discomfort. There was a rug on the floor, on a washstand a china wash-bowl and pitcher instead of the petroleum tin with faucet in the khan yards for guests who wash. My window looked out on the garden and over the red-tiled roofs of the town, covered with storks’ nests.
The residence was situated on the border between the Turkish and the Bulgarian quarters. Round the corner, in the upper room of a large wooden building, was the church; and in the next street was the girls’ school, conducted by two American women with the assistance of several Bulgarians educated at Samakov.