A man in a fez whispers to you impressively: "La livre turque est encore d'un usage fort courant. La valeur au pair est de francs vingt-deux." But at this the Armenian shrieks violently. He scorns Turkish money and advises Italian lire. At the idea of lire the crowd howl. They hurl at you instead francs, piastres, paras, drachmas, lepta, metalliks, mejidis, centimes, and English shillings. The money-changer argues with them gravely. He does not send for the police to drive them away. He does not tell them: "This is none of your business." He knows better. In Salonika, it is their business. In Salonika, after money, the thing of most consequence is conversation. Men who are talking always have the right of way. When two men of Salonika are seized with a craving for conversation, they feel, until that craving is satisfied, that nothing else is important. So, when the ruling passion grips them, no matter where they may meet, they stop dead in their tracks and talk. If possible they select the spot, where by standing still they can cause the greatest amount of inconvenience to the largest number of people. They do not withdraw from the sidewalk. On the contrary, as best suited for conversation, they prefer the middle of it, the doorway of a cafe, or the centre aisle of a restaurant. Of the people who wish to pass they are as unconscious as a Chinaman smoking opium is unconscious of the sightseers from up-town. That they are talking is all that counts. They feel every one else should appreciate that. Because the Allies failed to appreciate it, they gained a reputation for rudeness. A French car, flying the flag of the general, a squad of Tommies under arms, a motor-cyclist carrying despatches could not understand that a conversation on a street crossing was a sacred ceremony. So they shouldered the conversationalists aside or splashed them with mud. It was intolerable. Had they stamped into a mosque in their hobnailed boots, on account of their faulty religious training, the Salonikans might have excused them. But that a man driving an ambulance full of wounded should think he had the right to disturb a conversation that was blocking the traffic of only the entire water-front was a discourtesy no Salonikan could comprehend.