During our evening halt at Stora one of us read aloud from the guide book the description of Baalbek.
When we came to the measurement of the stones the “Doubter” explained: “Is anybody fool enough to believe such nonsense?”
We tried to argue with him that possibly the stones were of that size, but he closed the argument as he did most arguments by saying: “I know better.”
On our way to Baalbek we saw the stone in the quarry and asked what he thought of it. "That is nothing,” he replied, “they haven’t moved it.”
When we saw the three stones in the wall and measured their length and height he said they were joined together.
He could find no joint and finally insisted that they were only thin slabs fastened to the walls, and to this day he insists that he knows they are nothing like what they are represented to be. He vowed not to speak of them when he reached home for fear he would not be believed.
He always kept the hotel bills so that he could prove that he had been to the places we visited.
“The ‘Doubter’ must be a veree great, what you call in English, liar, at home,” said our fair German companion one day, “if he thinks people not believe him without his hotel bills.”
The “Doubter” after all was a source of amusement to us at odd times, in spite of his high rank as a nuisance, and we finally concluded that it was well to have him along on the same principle that the Romans used to receive a victorious general with shouts of applause and triumphal honors and at the same time kept a slave at his side to call him opprobrious names and continually remind him that he was mortal.
The ancient Egyptian also set our party an example in the same way as they used to put a skeleton in one of the chairs at a public or private festivity so that the guests might remember what they were coming to.