Theodore, the Greek waiter, looked exactly what he was--a born conspirator who had strayed from melodrama into real life. In the whole of Turkey there was no greater expert in the science of throwing dust into the eyes of soldiers and gendarmes. He not only lived by plotting, but, next to money, seemed to like it better than anything in the world. He was also a first-rate gossip. Having seated the guards in a corner where they could see but not hear us, the little Greek, with his bent shoulders and blue-glassed spectacles, would sidle up to our table, and producing a menu-card, say: "_Bonjour!_ What would you like, gentlemen?" Then, running his finger down the list as if suggesting something to eat, he would continue: "I heard to-day that the Grand Vizier had quarrelled once more with the Sultan"; or, "Enver Pasha was shot at in Galata yesterday, and is wounded in the chest. It is said that he will not recover." He never failed to produce at least one such rumour as these. Most often he would announce that Bulgaria was about to make a separate peace, which possibility was reported in Constantinople at least a dozen times before it really happened. I always found him trustworthy, for his hatred of the Turks was stronger even than his greed for money, and no sum could have tempted him to become a spy in the service of the Turkish police--a position once offered to him. In any case, he was always convinced that the British would win the war; and, therefore, knowing which side his bread was buttered, would never have dared to betray the Britishers who employed him. As an intermediary for correspondence he was reliable but expensive, his charge being twenty piastres for each letter delivered. "Theodore, my friend," one would say, "I want you to go to Pera for me." "Good. If you have not written the letter I will engage the guards while you prepare it." He would then stroll across to the guards' table with the news that the British officers would be pleased to buy them whatever they wanted to eat; and the prisoner scribbled his note, a slip of paper resting on his lap and the body of Theodore screening him from the guards in the far corner. Later the letter would be handed to Theodore, in the middle of the banknotes with which one paid the bill. If a reply were brought, Theodore delivered it under cover of a menu-card, always with a whispered reminder, "Twenty piastres." During the last six months of the war the Greek waiter must have been the messenger for scores of secret communications.