It seemed to me that Enver almost eagerly seized upon this suggestion as a way out of his dilemma.
“How many will you let me send?” he asked quickly. The moment he put this question I knew that I had carried my point.
“I would suggest that you take twenty English and twenty French—forty in all.”
“Let me have fifty,” he said.
“All right—we won’t haggle over ten,” I answered. “But you must make another concession. Let me pick out the fifty who are to go.”
This agreement had relieved the tension, and now the gracious side of Enver’s nature began to show itself again.
“No, Mr. Ambassador,” he replied. “You have prevented me from making a mistake this afternoon; now let me prevent you from making one. If you select the fifty men who are to go, you will simply make fifty enemies. I think too much of you to let you do that. I will prove to you that I am your real friend. Can’t you make some other suggestion?”
“Why not take the youngest? They can stand the fatigue best.”
“That is fair,” answered Enver. He said that Bedri, who was in the building at that moment, would select the “victims.” This caused me some uneasiness; I knew that Enver’s modification of his order would displease Bedri, whose hatred of the foreigners had shown itself on many occasions, and that the head of the police would do his best to find some way of evading it. So I asked Enver to send for Bedri and give him his new orders in my presence. Bedri came in, and, as I had suspected, he did not like the new arrangement at all. As soon as he heard that he was to take only fifty and the youngest he threw up his hands and began to walk up and down the room.
“No, no, this will never do!” he said. “I don’t want the youngest, I must have notables!”