"But when Madama speaks in that strange tongue her servant is afraid he has not done his errand in the town as she desires."
"Tck! Go every day. You will find him soon."
"If Madama gave me a letter...."
"And some great fool of an Osmanli soldier would go through thy pockets, and lock thee up in the jail on Mount Pagos with all the other Jews. And who would write the letter? You? Can you write?"
"Very little, Madama," he muttered, trembling.
"And I cannot write at all, though I don't tell anybody. I could never learn. I read, yes; the large words in the cinemas; but not letters. Let us forget that. You have the picture?"
"Ah, Madama, it is next my heart!"
He would bring it out, unfolding a fragment of paper, and show her a photograph about as large as a stamp, and she would glower at it for a moment.
"You are sure he is not at the Hotel Kraemer?"
"Madama, one of the maids there is of my own people, the Eskenazi, and she has assured me there is no one like the picture there. But the general will arrive in a day or two. Perhaps he is a general, Madama?" he hinted.