represent his country with a considerable amount of dignity and personal ease. I have always regarded it as indicating his innate cleverness that, though he had had little schooling, he had picked up enough French to converse tolerably in that language. Physically he was a striking figure. His powerful frame, his huge, sweeping back and his rocky biceps emphasised that natural mental strength and forcefulness which made possible his career. In discussing matters Talaat liked to sit at his desk, with his shoulders drawn up, his head thrown back, and his wrists, twice the size of an ordinary man’s, planted firmly on the table. It always seemed to me that it would take a crowbar to pry these wrists from the board, once Talaat’s strength and defiant spirit had laid them there. Whenever I think of Talaat now I do not primarily recall his rollicking laugh, his uproarious enjoyment of a good story, the mighty stride with which he crossed the room, his fierceness, his determination, his remorselessness--the whole life and nature of the man take form in those gigantic wrists. Talaat, like most strong men, had his forbidding, even his ferocious, moods. One day I found him sitting at the usual place, his massive shoulders drawn up, his eyes glowering, his wrists planted on the desk. I always anticipated trouble whenever I found him in this attitude. As I made request after request, Talaat, between his puffs at his cigarette, would answer “No!” “No!” “No!” I slipped around to his side of the desk. “I think those wrists are making all the trouble, your Excellency,” I said. “Won’t you please take them off the table?” Talaat’s ogre-like face began to crinkle, he threw up his arms, leaned back, and gave a roar of terrific laughter. He enjoyed my method of treating him so much that he granted every request I made. At another time I came into his room when a couple of Arab princes were present. Talaat was solemn and dignified, and refused every favour I asked. “No, I shall not do that. No, I haven’t the slightest idea of doing that,” he would answer. I saw that he was trying to impress his princely guests, to show them that he had become so great a man that he did not hesitate to “turn down” an Ambassador. So I came up nearer and spoke quietly. “I see you are trying to make an impression on these princes,” I said. “Now if it’s necessary for you to pose, do it with the Austrian Ambassador--he’s out there waiting to come in. My affairs are too important to be trifled with.” Talaat laughed. “Come back in an hour,” he said. I came back; the Arab princes had left, and we had no difficulty in arranging matters to my satisfaction.