“Oh,” said Talaat, “he would go against my digestion.” He was altogether in a reckless mood. “Gott strafe England!” he shouted, using one of the few German phrases that he knew. “As to your Armenians, we don’t give a rap for the future! We live only in the present! As to the English, I wish you would telegraph Washington that we shall not do a thing for them until they let out Ayoub Sabri and Zinnoun!”
Then, leaning over, he struck a pose, pressed his hand to his head, and said in English—I think this must have been almost all the English he knew:
“Ayoub Sabri—he—my—brudder!”
Despite this, I made another plea for Dr. McNaughton.
“He’s not American,” said Talaat, “he’s a Canadian.”
“It’s almost the same thing,” I said.
“Well,” replied Talaat, “if I let him go will you promise that the United States will annex Canada?”
“I promise,” said I, and we both laughed at this little joke.
“Every time you come here,” Talaat finally said, “you always steal something from me. All right, you can have your McNaughton!”
Certainly this interview was not an encouraging beginning, so far as the Armenians were concerned. But Talaat was not always in an “Ayoub Sabri mood.” He went from one emotion to another as lightly as a child; I would find him fierce and unyielding one day, and uproariously good-natured and accommodating the next. Prudence indicated, therefore, that I should await one of his more congenial moments before approaching him on the subject that aroused all the barbarity in his nature. Such an opportunity soon presented itself. One day, soon after the interview chronicled above, I called on Talaat again. The first thing he did was to open his desk and pull out a handful of yellow cablegrams.