lied his fellow-officers; but he only
wore the uniform once, having been caught and mercilessly chaffed by a
contingent of British officers who were waiting for the formation of the
Turkish gendarmerie under Colonel Valentine Baker. Associated with this
crowd of silly and inexperienced boys was an old grey-bearded American
doctor, who believed in the whole cock-and-bull story as if it had
been gospel, and had undertaken to act as surgeon aboard that visionary
craft. He was a delightful old fellow, and, for all his simplicity,
had a vein of humour in him. Odd as it may sound, he was a man of some
distinction, and had served with conspicuous honour in the Civil War, He
had money of his own, and Heaven only knows how many generous things he
did amongst the crowd of stranded foreigners at that time in the city.

'I don't lay out to know much,' he said to me one day; 'but I have made
one discovery. Civilisation and the paper collar air ttwrterminous.
Turkey is a civilised country. I bought half a gross of paper collars at
the Bon Marche this morning. So long as I can purchase a paper collar I
know I am in a civilised country, and when I cayn't, I ain't.'

I met the doctor a day or two after the publication of this memorable
discovery, He was talking with one of the officers of the expedition,
and suddenly he threw the walking-stick he carried high into the air.

'That lets me out!' he said, in a very loud and decided tone; and,
quitting his companion, he beckoned to me to follow him. The old
gentleman's face and gesture were so urgent that I joined him at once.
He told his story in a vernacular racier than I dare to copy; but it
came to this. The Government had got wind of the precious scheme (to
which it had, of course, never given a moment's sanction), and had come
down with an intimation that the originator of it and his subordinates
would do well immediately to leave the country.

The chieftain was not thus easily to be balked, however. He called a
council of war, and proposed to his astonished satellites that they
should steal a gun-boat and turn pirates against the Russians on their
own account. This delectable scheme was instantly rejected by the
gentlemen to whom it was submitted, and it was the news of it which
let the doctor out. He took steamer that afternoon for Syra, and I
have never since heard of him. The officers of the letter of marque
surrendered their uniforms to the tailor whom they had blessed with
th