We waited humbly the appearance of Someone-Effendi, quite on our p's and q's. The enemy soon appeared, rather grubby, in a tarboosh and a scrubby European overcoat. My presence was explained. We were all very polite to one another. I was irresistibly reminded of the meeting of two dogs who approach each other growling from opposite sides of the road, decide not to bite, wag stiff tails and pretend to be glad to see one another, while their bristles stand up on their backs. Chairs were brought, we were asked to sit down, and the inevitable black coffee appeared. Then I was told that as I was in Turkey I must see the coffee-shop, and we adjourned thither. The owner of it, a burly handsome fellow with a yellow moustache and eyes as blue as an Anglo-Saxon's, sprawled, picturesque in black-and-white striped costume, on the bench in the balcony. He was friendly, and we had more coffee and some sticky sweet stuff, while he smoked cigarettes in a holder the mouthpiece of which was a fine lump of amber and the stem black wood and silver filigree. "He is a Turk," said my companions. "He doesn't look like one," said I; for every Mohammedan calls himself a "Turk," and this one was like a fair Albanian. They repeated my remark to him, upon which he laughed and said that he did not speak Turkish. He wore a very handsome silver chain round his neck, and that and the cigarette-holder attracted my attention. "Those are from Skodra," I said. He beamed. "You know Skodra!" And he vowed gleefully that of all cities in the world Skodra was the finest, and appealed to me to support him. My companions were incredulous, they had never been there. The statement that I had been there twice satisfied him, and he smiled at me frankly, for now we knew that we had the same tastes. "You have seen the bazaar?" I nodded. "Oh, that is fine, very fine," he said. The bazaar would indeed have been a suitable background for him; I could imagine him cheerily filling up the gaps in his cartridge belt, and even more cheerily fighting on the Turkish side against all and any who should wish to force Western ideas into that and other happy hunting grounds. Drinks differ in all lands, but everywhere it is correct to offer and accept too much of them; so we drank an inordinate quantity of coffee, said farewell to the Effendi, and were soon safely off the premises and in our own territory. The captain took me a walk along the Servian frontier by the rivers side, a rich and beautiful land ablaze with a wonderful variety of wild flowers; only the two Turkish fortresses kept in mind the fact that the green land across the narrow stream was one of the sorest spots in Europe. The captain's tale of a boy who had been shot not long before by the Turks was concluded as we came in sight of the last fort, and we turned back. I think we went about three miles and took an hour over it; but the captain was very warm, and all his friends agreed that the English walked at an alarming pace.