The next day, having hidden my trousers under my bed when I arrived (they always take away all one's kit on entering hospital) the guard was sent to get them. I put them on nevertheless, and then demanded to see the Director. It took all day to await my chance, but when the posta was off the _qui vive_ I ran along in my trousers and a blue overall of the hospital towards his office. It was a huge building, and I got lost, but it was fatal to turn, so I went on through numerous corridors with an increasing train of postas at my heels, and finally fetched up in what appeared to be an ante-chamber of the Director's wife. The postas stopped short and peered in at the door. I apologized to the Turkish lady, who was arguing with some Armenian maids. She asked why I was running away from the postas. I assured her I was doing nothing of the kind, but I was merely running to the Director. She was tickled by my having trousers, and asked how I had managed it. I explained that the Director had given me a standing invitation to his office for any request and that I had hidden my trousers to be able to do so. She rebuked me for breaking rules, and asked me what I could possibly want. I said I wanted to give some urgent information to the Chef d'Hôpital. Finally, she conducted me to him. He heard me coming, and I saw his face over the posta's shoulder quite enraged and savage, and he said I was not to enter. It was spoken in Turkish. I had, however, already entered! His face changed in a second, and he was the crafty Director, professed huge surprise at my statement that I had had no food and had not been allowed out of the room, or to cash cheques, or to receive any attention, and that I wanted to return to the garrison at Psamatia. He promised to remedy all things at once, and to send me "ée yemek" (good food) at that very moment. I extracted a promise to depart next day. How I loathed the place! The Russians alone made it unbearable, poor fellows. They seemed on the verge of suicide in that great empty room with hundreds of beds in it. Nothing else happened for two days except that a Turkish doctor came and injected some serum into my eyes, which he said was to happen three times a day. The Director himself came round next day, and tried to pretend he was busy, when I went for him. I made myself such a nuisance, and torpedoed his dignity so successfully, that he finally unmasked, and I knew him for the cruel, lying, and crafty type of Turk, veneered with excellent manners, but a brute at heart. It was the same fellow, as far as I can remember, who refused a dying Russian officer's daily request for permission to have one or two of his friends from Psamatia to see him in order to make his will and provide for his wife and children. I had been in Psamatia when our Russian friend (Roussine) had daily asked for this from their end. Their letters were never answered, but were destroyed by the old commandant, as were the dying man's by the Director. He died.