brass cages, canaries sang.

Philip, gazing upward, admired their song, whereat the bey at once
announced that they were his. The American protested that, much as the
gift delighted his taste and roused his gratitude, it was impossible to
think of carrying a canary back to Constantinople.

"If you please..." insisted the imperturbable bey. "It is yours!"
Scarcely had we returned, indeed, before another patient hamal knocked,
lugging the hapless bird.

The hostages, not to be outdone, invited Philip, the bey, and ourselves
to lunch. There was chicken soup and chicken, and salad and native
wine, and, for the corner of the improvised table, where the guests were
seated, the hospitable young men had actually procured several bottles
of Gallipoli champagne. The barber with the poetic beard leaped to his
feet, as fluent in welcoming us as he had been in protestations a few
evenings before, while the aesthetic young man smiled pensively down at
a long-stemmed fleur-de-lis which he slowly twirled in his fingers. The
cashier of a Constantinople department store sang from "Tosca."

With him as leader they all sang--a song of the Pyrenees mountaineers,
then a waltz from the cafes chantants: "Bien gentiment l'on se balade.
C'est la premiere promenade--"

In another week we should have had a Gallipoli Glee Club.

And so ended the adventure of the fifty hostages, who went out to be
shot at--the end of the comedy, which had its climax at the beginning.
The next morning we were up at daylight, and after several hours' delay