_Enter_: Gorgeous official, Interpreter with a mean, shifty face, and other incompetent perverts who look as though they were “walking on” for five piastres a performance. Probably they actually are. _Interpreter_: “His Excellency wishes me to tell you that you are not prisoners, your country and mine are at war, but we are all soldiers. You are our honoured guests; is there anything that you require? All will be given you; in a few days you shall have complete liberty.” _Senior Prisoner_: “Please thank the--General, Pasha, Excellency, Bey, Effendi, or whatnot; the title does not affect the procedure--We should like to write letters, to have a bath, to have the beds disinfected, and to be able to purchase soap, tooth-brushes, underclothes, etc., etc.” _Interpreter_ (after collusion with the great man): “Certainly, all these things will be allowed. Is there anything more you require?” _Prisoners_ make various suggestions. _Interpreter_: “Yes, of course. You are our honoured guests. In one hour, perhaps.” _Exeunt omnes_, except prisoners. And that is all. That is the whole trick. The keynote is the interpreter’s final word “perhaps.” Nothing whatsoever happens. The one hour spins out to many hours, to days, to months, to years. Nothing whatever comes of the interview. But in the course of time prisoners learn other means. Our “other means” in the Ministry of War was a cultivated person, the editor of a newspaper, who was serving in his country’s army as a private soldier, and who had so far escaped fighting. He was put on to do us, and he did. But he did, at any rate, see that our meals were fairly regular, and he bought us tooth-brushes and a chess-board. Judged by the new standard we were fast assuming, he was not a bad fellow. I wonder to what extent it is a good thing to alter one’s standards in that manner. Degradation of principles _versus_ breadth of mind. It is one of the many undermining influences a prisoner has to combat if he would come back to the world a decent man.