to put his foots in
this--what you call--steel trap? No, no, we keep away. To-morrow, don't
it, we take Yusuf and go Scutari? One beautiful fountain at Scutari
like you never see!"

"But can't her father help?" I asked, ignoring his suggestion. His
caution did not interest me. It was the imprisoned girl and her
suffering that occupied my thoughts.

"Yes, perhaps, but not yet. I somethings hear one day from the gardener
who live with her father, but maybe it all lie. He say Serim come and
say--" Again Joe chafed his thumb and forefinger, after the manner of
the paying teller. "Maybe ten thousand piastres--maybe twenty. Her
father would pay, of course, only the Sultan might not like--then worse
trouble--nothing will be done anyhow until the wedding is over. Then,
perhaps, some time."

I did not go to Scutari the next day. I opened my easel in the patio of
the Pigeon Mosque and started in to paint the plaza with Cleopatra's
Needle in the distance. This would occupy the morning. In the afternoon
I would finish my sketch of Suleiman. Should Joe have a fresh attack of
ague he could join Yusuf at the cafe and forget it in the thimbleful
that cheers but does not inebriate.

With the setting up of my tripod and umbrella and the opening of my
color-box a crowd began to gather--market people, fruit-sellers,
peddlers, scribes, and soldiers. Then a shrill voice rang out from one
of the minarets calling the people to prayer. A group of priests now
joined the throng about me watched me for a moment, consulted together,
and then one of them, an old man in a silken robe of corn-yellow bound
about with a broad sash of baby blue, a majestic old man, with a
certain rhythmic movement about him which was enchanting, laid his hand
on Joseph's shoulder and looking into his eyes, begged him to say to
his master that the making of pictures of any living or dead thing,
especially mosques, was contrary to their religion, and that the
effendi must fold his tent.

All this time another priest, an old patriarch with a fez and green
turban and Nile-green robe overlaid with another of rose-pink, was
scrutinizing my face. Then the corn-yellow fellow and the rose-pink
patriarch put their heads together, consulted for a moment, made me a
low bow, performed the flying-fingers act, and floated off toward the
mosque.

"You no go 'way, effendi," explained Joe. "The priest in green turban
say he remember you; he say you holy man who bow yourselluf humb