Once in Paris I met a Greek who had served for two years as a private secretary at Yildiz. Greeks and other non-Moslems occupy many posts in the Sultan’s service where cleverness and an understanding of European character are imperative. This particular Greek incurred the Sultan’s suspicions, and was clever enough to escape from Constantinople. I was indeed glad to get the opportunity to talk with a man who had been of the Sultan’s household, and many of the tales I had heard, which needed proof, I repeated to him. He said they were mostly true--in principle. He did not believe that the Sultan had faith in one word of the Koran; certainly he was no fatalist. The Greek went on to say that while the Sultan is crazed on the one point of plots against his life, he is remarkably clever at handling men. He seems to have an uncanny power over men. When they first meet him they are surprised at his sanity and his gentility, which is a good beginning; and he gradually weaves his web of influence about old and tried ambassadors. The only people who have been thoroughly equal to him are the Russians; they play his own game. They have played on his weak point and made a treaty with him--according to this gentleman--guaranteeing his throne to him for the rest of his life in return for certain privileges which allow them to take inventory of his estate. ‘Après moi, le déluge!’ But the Sultan is not quite all of his Government, and for the others the entire indemnity for the war of 1878, as it is paid in annual instalments, is set aside--so my informant says--for distribution at Constantinople. The Palace and the Porte probably receive from Russia retaining fees larger than their salaries. I happened to be in Constantinople again at a time when the Russians were meeting with defeat in Manchuria. The town was much interested in the contest, and the Turk in the street, who is ignorant, was rejoicing in his dignified way at the reverses of his country’s enemy. But suddenly the Russians turned the tables and won several astounding victories over the Japanese, and the Moslems were unhappy. This is how it happened. ‘The Palace’ had discovered that the sensibilities of the Russian representatives in Turkey were being tried severely by the reports of their defeats in the Far East, and that individual of marvellous imagination, the Turkish censor, was put to work to lighten their distress, which he did most generously.