‘Tell my lord that I await his arrival with impatience, that of all pending questions none shall receive solution till he comes, that I am the very least of his servants.’ And with an air of most dignified sincerity, he bowed him out, and Atlee hastened away to tell his chief that he had ‘squared the Turk,’ and would sail on the morrow. CHAPTER LXIII ATLEE ON HIS TRAVELS On board the Austrian Lloyd’s steamer in which he sailed from Constantinople, Joseph Atlee employed himself in the composition of a small volume purporting to be _The Experiences of a Two Years’ Residence in Greece_. In an opening chapter of this work he had modestly intimated to the reader how an intimate acquaintance with the language and literature of modern Greece, great opportunities of mixing with every class and condition of the people, a mind well stored with classical acquirements and thoroughly versed in antiquarian lore, a strong poetic temperament and the feeling of an artist for scenery, had all combined to give him a certain fitness for his task; and by the extracts from his diary it would be seen on what terms of freedom he conversed with Ministers and ambassadors, even with royalty itself. A most pitiless chapter was devoted to the exposure of the mistakes and misrepresentations of a late _Quarterly_ article called ‘Greece and her Protectors,’ whose statements were the more mercilessly handled and ridiculed that the paper in question had been written by himself, and the sarcastic allusions to the sources of the information not the less pungent on that account. That the writer had been admitted to frequent audiences of the king, that he had discussed with his Majesty the cutting of the Isthmus of Corinth, that the king had seriously confided to him his belief that in the event of his abdication, the Ionian Islands must revert to him as a personal appanage, the terms on which they were annexed to Greece being decided by lawyers to bear this interpretation--all these Atlee denied of his own knowledge, an asked the reader to follow him into the royal cabinet for his reasons. When, therefore, he heard that from some damage to the machinery the vessel must be detained some days at Syra to refit, Atlee was scarcely sorry that necessity gave him an opportunity to visit Athens. A little about Ulysses and a good deal about Lord Byron, a smattering of Grote, and a more perfect memory of About, were, as he owned to himself, all his Greece; but he could answer for what three days in the country would do for him, particularly with that spirit of candid inquiry he could now bring to his task, and the genuine fairness with which he desired to judge the people. ‘The two years’ resident’ in Athens must doubtless often have dined with his Minister, and so Atlee sent his card to the Legation.