It was sundown when we got back to the hostages with our spoils. The thing had begun to get on their nerves. The English said little, determined evidently to remain Britons to the last, but some of the Levantines let themselves go completely. A pale gentleman with a poetic beard, a barber by profession, was among the most eloquent. It was not a jail, it was a mad-house, he cried. Another declared that without bedding, doctor, or medicines, shut up here until the end of the war, probably, they must at least have food--that was a need "primordial!" Another stood apart, whacking his chest and addressing the empty air, "C'est moi, c'est moi, qui n'a pas d'argent!"--it was he who had no money and nothing to cover him, and what did they want him to do? If he had come down to be shot at, well and good, but if he was to be frozen and starved by inches... Philip smoothed them down as best he could and returned to invite the governor's secretary to stay for dinner, a repast for which Hassan, the embassy khavass who accompanied the expedition, had procured, as he put it, "some fresh eggies from a nice little man." The bey, who, that morning, had leaned toward the French, now warmed to America. The French were enlightened, he said, but without morals, the English civilized but jealous; if he had any sons he would send them to America, the only place where young men were both civilized and properly "serieux." In the midst of these amiable speculations it was suggested that, in view of the difficulty of getting mattresses, the government might even requisition them. The suggestion drew a regretful sigh from the bey, for Turkey was a constitutional country, he said, the shops and houses were closed and their owners gone, and there was no way in which such a thing could be done. In addition to Hassan's eggies, Philip's Man Friday, the incomparable Levy, had constructed some rice puddings, and it was in despair that he announced, just before they were to be served, that two had "gone by the cats"! We had, indeed, by this time attracted most of the cats in Gallipoli. They streaked through the rooms like chain lightning, and in the dead of night went galloping over the piano keyboard with sounds so blood-curdling that Suydam put his mattress on the sofa and his sleeping-bag on top of that, and, shutting himself in, defied them. The incomparable Levy was Italian by his birth and cheerfulness, Jewish on his father's side, Turkish by the fez he wore and a life spent in guiding strangers about Constantinople. He had the face of a dean of a diplomatic corps or one of those comfortable old gentlemen in spats who have become fixtures in some city club.