ied next morning. There were
lifted eyebrows and cynical stares, but the young gentleman was not in
a condition to regard these and he went on to cry: "muscove dormous!"
signifying that a Russian was a hog, and drawing a masonic forefinger
across his throat to indicate what, in his opinion, ought to be done
with him. The youngster stood there, big and burly and jolly, and
meaning, I am quite sure, no harm to anybody, when a little Greek, who
was seated opposite to him, said, "Je suis muscove, monsieur," and the
lad leant across the marble table and aimed a mock buffet at him which
unfortunately reached him and rolled him over as if he had been a
ninepin. At the "Concert Flam" a porcelain coffee cup weighed something
like a quarter of a pound, and half a dozen of these came hurling at
the offender from various parts of the room. There were big mirrors
all round the cafe reaching from the ceiling to the dado; one or two
of these were smashed, and, before one could say "Jack Robinson," the
wildest disorder reigned and all the place was in a _melee_. The nine or
ten Englishmen who were there ranged themselves round the originator
of the disturbance, who was really in some momentary danger. The whole
posse of us formed into an irregular ring in the centre of the room,
and for a while we had quite a merry time of it. There were flags of
all nationalities hung about the little hall dependent from short wooden
lances with gilt heads, and these our assailants tore down and used as
weapons against us. The conflict was brief and decisive; numerically
there were perhaps six to one against us, but we ended by forming in
lines, and the barbarous English fashion of striking straight from the
shoulder sent the enemy in a hurry towards the narrow and winding
stair which afforded the only exit from the place, and here, in the
exhilaration of the moment, two of our party did an unguarded thing;
they took to dropping the fugitives in the rear over the banister on to
the heads and shoulders of the crowd below. We were left masters of
the field but, as it happened, the "Concert Flam" was situated right
opposite to the lowest Greek quarter, the Rue Yildiji, I think it was
called, and it was approached under a low arch by a dirty flight of
stone steps. Up these steps thronged a great crowd of people armed with
anything they could snatch up at the moment--frying-pans, pokers, fire
shovels, and any article of domestic use which at short notice mig