Nothing hurts his feelings more than to be the object of ridicule on account of any lack of up-to-dateness, as the following story will serve to illustrate. While we were at Kastamoni, a chimney in one of the houses occupied by the prisoners of war caught fire, and, with a great flourish of trumpets, the town fire-brigade was called out to extinguish the conflagration. Let not the reader, however, picture to himself even the most obsolete of horsed fire-engines. In this town, with a pre-war population of something like 25,000 souls, and with houses almost entirely built of timber, dependence in the event of a fire was placed on what can best be described as a diminutive tank carried on a stretcher, and provided with a small pump worked by a lever, seesaw fashion. The tank was kept filled by buckets replenished at the nearest spring. The sight of two men in shabby uniform solemnly oscillating the lever by the handle at either end, and of the feeble trickle of water which resulted at the nozzle of the hose, was too much for the sense of humour of the British officers who happened to be present at the time. At this moment the commandant, then one Tewfik Bey, appeared on the scene. Horrified at such ill-timed levity on the part of the onlookers, he seized upon a major standing by and had him escorted to his room, there to be confined till Tewfik's anger should abate. To the Turk this tank was the latest thing in fire-engines. To carry the story to its happy ending, we may add that, after three days of confinement, the major addressed a letter to H.E. Enver Pasha through the commandant, which ran somewhat as follows:-- "SIR,--I have the honour to report that, owing to the close confinement in which I have been kept, my health has now entirely broken down. I therefore request that, with a view to providing some slight possibility of recovery, I may be allowed to go to England on one month's sick leave, and that as far as the port of embarkation I may be accompanied by _posta_[5] 'Ginger,' as he alone in all Turkey really understands my temperament.--I have the honour to be, sir, your most obedient prisoner of war, X." Whether this letter ever reached His Excellency we shall probably never know. From our knowledge of the Turk's total lack of humour, however, we should say that it is more than probable that Tewfik Bey solemnly forwarded it on through the proper channel. That no answer was received proves nothing; for it is a matter of years to get a reply to an application like this from the authorities at Constantinople, and the letter was only written three years ago. At least it had this good effect, that the major was released from confinement forthwith.