Should I visit that hotel a decade hence, I expect to find the same decanter of wine, that stood by my plate during my stay. The day I left I grasped the decanter affectionately and gave it a farewell kiss.
“Good bye, my friend, good bye,” I gently murmured, “we shall meet again some time, let us fervently hope. I am a frail mortal and may not last many years, but you have enduring qualities that should preserve you a century or two Don’t ‘sour on me’ when I am far away; if anything, you are too sour already.”
The decanter was too full for utterance.
A tear stood in its eye, though it may have been a drop remaining from the effort of the waiter to tone the wine down with water, so that the stuff would be drinkable.
Ramadan closed in a blaze of glory. The ships of the Turkish squadron were gorgeously dressed in flags, and many English and French residents hung out their national standards.
From the ships and the forts all round came the booming of artillery—not in occasional spattering shots, but in a salvo that seemed to shake the city, and check the flow of the waters through the Bosphorus.
The fast was over and the Moslem was happy. Next day was the feast of Bairam, and the Sultan was to pray in the mosque of Saint Sophia. Of course we went to see him arrive at the mosque, and we had to rise disagreeably early in order to be promptly on the ground.