When your coffee is ready it is poured into an after-dinner
coffee-cup or into a miniature bowl, and brought to you on a tray
with a glass of water. A foreigner can almost always be spotted by
the manner in which he finally partakes of these refreshments. A
Turk sips his water first, partly to prepare the way for the
coffee, but also because he is a connoisseur of the former liquid
as other men are of stronger ones. And he lifts his coffee-cup by
the saucer, whether it possess a handle or no, managing the two
together in a dexterous way of his own. The current price for all
this, not including the water-pipe, is ten paras--a trifle over a
cent--for which the _kahvehji_ will cry you "Blessing". More
pretentious establishments charge twenty paras, while a giddy few
rise to a piaster--not quite five cents--or a piaster and a half.
That, however, begins to look like extortion. And mark that you do
not tip the waiter. I have often been surprised to be charged no
more than the tariff, although I gave a larger piece to be changed
and it was perfectly evident that I was a foreigner. That is an
experience which rarely befalls a traveller among his own
coreligionaries. It has even happened to me, which is rarer still,
to be charged nothing at all, nay, to be steadfastly refused when I
persisted in attempting to pay, simply because I was a foreigner,
and therefore a guest.

There is no reason, however, why you should go away when you have
had your coffee--or your glass of tea--and your smoke. On the
contrary, there are reasons why you should stay, particularly if
you happen into the coffee-house not too long after sunset. Then
coffee-houses of the most local color are at their best. Earlier in
the day their clients are likely to be at work. Later they will
have disappeared altogether. For Constantinople has not quite
forgotten the habits of the tent. Stamboul, except during the holy
month of Ramazan, is a deserted city at night. But just after dark
it is full of a life which an outsider is often content simply to
watch through the lighted windows of coffee-rooms. These are also
barber-shops, where men have shaved not only their chins, but
different parts of their heads according to their "countries". In
them likewise checkers, the Persian backgammon,