Now, an official in Turkey always knows his spy, and the spy always knows that his man knows him. The spy and his man, of course, are always together, and they become the most intimate friends. Naturally, the man seeks ever to please his spy, which in this case makes Ismail Pasha virtual Vali of the vilayet. He dictates the names of the police who shall be employed--and naturally has a preference for outlaws; kaimakams and other officers of districts hold their places at his pleasure; and Government contracts are awarded to Ismail Pasha, be his bid high or low. Ismail is the trusted ally of Abdul Hamid, and is permitted, therefore, to grow rich and powerful. CHAPTER VII THE DYNAMITERS On the occasion of my first visit to Salonica one of the American missionaries took me over the town sightseeing. When we came to the local branch of the Imperial Ottoman Bank, a modern bank building of quite an imposing appearance, my fellow-countryman said he had heard that ‘the committee’ were going to dynamite the place. But this was no news to me, for, on alighting at the railway station, the Greek porter of the Angleterre had told me of this project of the insurgents, giving it as a reason why I should stop at his hotel instead of at the Cristoforo Colombo, which stood just beside the bank; and the Jew bootblacks while shining my shoes had discussed the coming ‘outrages’ and had told me several exact days on which they would take place. A revolutionary plot so widely known could be little more, I thought, than a work of native imagination, and, as the missionary held a similar view, I lengthened not my stay in Salonica to await the event. I was in search of exciting ‘copy,’ and without the slightest solicitude for that I left behind, took my way to the interior of the country. During my absence the authorities raided a Bulgarian khan in the neighbourhood of the bank, which rumour fixed upon as the bomb factory of the committajis; but they discovered no insurgents and no dynamite. The real factory, however, was not a hundred feet away, and when I returned from my excursion inland I occupied a room in the Hôtel Colombo which directly overlooked it. It was, to all outward appearance, a little Bulgarian shop in a narrow, unpretentious street, and the shopkeeper and his customers were only simple, dirty peasants. I often watched the Bulgars enter and leave the place, but so little did I suspect their real character that only three days before their attack I deserted Salonica again for the Albanian district.