o their circulation. How the news of the young Bulgarian's arrival
in England got there I do not know, but there was a considerable
journalistic fuss about him, and the result was that a wealthy Bulgarian
family, resident in Manchester, made overtures to my sister, and with my
free consent, formally adopted the child. Before this happened he paid
them a preliminary visit during which he was presented with a pony, and
a male domestic was told off specially to his service. When his adoption
was finally decided upon he went back to my sister's house in Liverpool
to gather up his belongings and to say good-bye. The little ingrate
refused to say one word of farewell to either of them. "I not English
any longer," he declared, "I Bulgar again," and Bulgar through and
through he was, to my thinking, sure enough. It is quite true that you
can't indict a nation, but I shall need some persuasion before I go out
of my way again to be of use to any member of that particular section of
the human family.

CHAPTER XI

Retrospect--Return to London--Interview with Mr Gladstone at
Hawarden--Reminiscences.

The memories of that adventurous year in Turkey come thronging back so
quickly that it is hard to choose amongst them. In the retrospect it
looks as if it had been in the main a rather jolly sort of picnic,
and at least there were streaks of splendid enjoyment in it Even our
hardships made fun for us at times. I suppose you can know more about a
man in a month if you go campaigning with him than you might find out
in the course of years in a mere stay-at-home existence. Little
generosities and selfishnesses display themselves more freely when
commons are running short and shelter is scanty than they do amongst
those who, in the phrase of Tennyson's northern farmer, "has coats to
their backs, and takes their regular meals." One British gentlemen we
had with us during the siege of Plevna was a perpetual source of joy
to me. He was a sort of human jackdaw, the picker-up of unconsidered
trifles; and especially in the way of provender and of medical comforts
he took care to be well provided whatever might befall the rest of
us. It happened one day during the siege that some member of our party
discovered in some huckster's shop in the village a couple of bottles
of rum. He bore these triumphantly to the two-storeyed hut in which the
greater number of us lived together, and that night we held a symposium.
The liquor was vil