“Could I use the piano to accompany my Italian friend?”
He did not hesitate to banish the six occupants of “mattresses” in the drawing-room from their domain until we finished “La Tosca” and “Madame Butterfly.” Then an American begged me to play the “Swannee River,” and nearly broke down before he had even got to the chorus.
“Did I not tell you,” said the sympathetic Naim, “Poor things, they are so far away from home!”
I suppose I should not be too severe upon these merchants among the ruins of their past glory, and, to do them justice, they are accepting defeat like good sportsmen. The Dutchman is as merry as a cricket, despite his £80,000 “gone west,” his thirty years’ work undone for ever, his fine farm burnt to cinders.
I wish he would make a book out of all he has seen and done in this land of romance. No one knows it better, and, if my own sympathies are apt to be with the brigands from whom he has twice suffered capture (because they only rob the rich), I have enjoyed few men’s tales of adventure more than his. Good and strong men are rare enough, and I know this one would never forget a friend. If danger threatened, it would only reach you over his dead body.
CHAPTER VI
BRITISH CHIVALRY!—BRAVE WOMEN A NUISANCE!
“Women are so absurdly brave,” said a charming British official, “that is why they are such a nuisance.”
He was seated at a small, improvised and over-crowded bureau in one of the few remaining houses on the Smyrna Quay. He had just sufficient of a Scotch accent to make one see that he would stand no nonsense—an asset, surely, in his position. Yet the obvious and zealous concern for his own countrywoman proved that, however carefully the calm exterior of the Scot may hide his feelings, his heart beats strong and true. He is no less proud, too, of his “women” than any citizen of the States!