The Pasha sank down into one of the wicker chairs scattered hospitably beneath the horse-chestnut trees, and thought how happy a man he was to have a fountain of the period of Sultan Ahmed III, and a garden so full of April freshness, and a view of the bright Bosphorus and the opposite hills of Europe and the firing West. How definitely he thought it I cannot say, for the Pasha was not greatly given to thought. Why should he be, since he possessed without that trouble a goodly share of what men acquire by taking thought? If he had been lapped in ease and security all his days, they numbered many more, did those days, than the Pasha would have chosen. Still, they had touched him but lightly, merely increasing the dignity of his handsome presence and taking away nothing of his power to enjoy his little walled world.
So he sat there, breathing in the air of the place and the hour, while gardeners came and went with their watering-pots, and birds twittered among the branches, and the fountain plashed beside him, until Shaban reappeared carrying a glass of water and a cup of coffee in a swinging tray.
"Eh, Shaban! It is not your business to carry coffee!" protested the Pasha, reaching for a stand that stood near him.
"What is your business is my business, Pasha'm. Have I not eaten your bread and your father's for thirty years?"
"No! Is it as long as that? We are getting old, Shaban."
"We are getting old," assented the Albanian simply.
The Pasha thought, as he took out his silver cigarette-case, of another Pasha who had complimented him that afternoon on his youthfulness. And, choosing a cigarette, he handed the case to his gatekeeper. Shaban accepted the cigarette and produced matches from his gay girdle.
"How long is it since you have been to your country, Shaban?"
The Pasha, lifting his little cup by its silver zarf, realised that he would not have sipped his coffee quite so noisily had his French wife been sitting with him under the horse-chestnut trees. But with his old Shaban he could still be a Turk.
"Eighteen months, my Pasha."