“Don’t do that!” she entreated. “Don’t leave me alone in this city. I’m afraid to be left alone, after what has happened.” “Hum! ha!” coughed Professor Gunn. “I think we will omit the theatre. Evidently it is a low resort. I decline to permit the boys to visit it.” And, although they chaffed him about it, the old man was rigid in his decision, which finally settled it, and they did not attend the theatre in Damascus. The following morning, however, they prepared to start out to look the city over. When they were ready to leave the hotel it was found that Buckhart had vanished. On inquiry they learned that he had set out by himself, leaving word for them not to bother about him. Nadia pouted and looked greatly disappointed. “What is the matter with him?” she asked. “I think he’s just as mean as can be! What makes him act so queer?” She pinned Dick down and put the question to him, not a little to his dismay. He could not tell the truth, and he would not lie. “I’ll have to let him explain his own actions,” he said, seeking to find a loophole of escape. “But you know why he is so peculiar—I know you do! You can’t deny it!” “I won’t try.” “Then you must tell me. I insist on it.” “Please don’t, Nadia! It will be all right in time, but I prefer to let him explain.” After a while he induced her to drop the subject temporarily although he knew she would return to it at the first opportunity and seek, with all the intensity of her feminine curiosity, than which there is nothing more acute and prying, to compel him to divulge the truth. Arouse the curiosity of a girl and she will strain every nerve to learn a secret, even though she knows the knowledge will make her most miserable. The only way to keep a secret from a girl is not to let her suspect a secret exists. They left the hotel and proceeded to the public square, which is located near the centre of the city. This square proved to be a large, open place, where at that hour throngs of people of all nationalities and colors were assembling. The square was a sort of public market. In the centre was a fountain and monument. All around the sides of the square were the little booths and stands of itinerant merchants, the most of them with their goods spread out on the ground before them, and arranged in the most inviting manner their ingenuity could devise. There were many professional letter writers, each one sitting at a desk under awnings of canvas or straw. They did not sit on chairs, but flat on the ground, with their legs crossed. They were supplied with wooden or reed pens. Their ink they carried in inkhorns. Many of these letter writers were busy. Some were writing business communications, some were drawing up contracts or making out legal papers, while one, with a veiled woman sitting near him, was writing a love letter, recording the words whispered to him by the lips hidden behind the veil.