II


The officers returned their visit during the day, and the American
Consul-General asked them all to a reception the following afternoon.
The entire colony came to this, and Holcombe met many people, and
drank tea with several ladies in riding-habits, and iced drinks with
all of the men. He found it very amusing, and the situation appealed
strongly to his somewhat latent sense of humor. That evening in
writing to his sister he told of his rapid recovery in health, and of
the possibility of his returning to civilization.

"There was a reception this afternoon at the Consul-General's," he
wrote, "given to the officers of our man-of-war, and I found myself in
some rather remarkable company. The Consul himself has become rich by
selling his protection for two hundred dollars to every wealthy Moor
who wishes to escape the forced loans which the Sultan is in the habit
of imposing on the faithful. For five hundred dollars he will furnish
any one of them with a piece of stamped paper accrediting him as
minister plenipotentiary from the United States to the Sultan's court.
Of course the Sultan never receives them, and whatever object they may
have had in taking the long journey to Fez is never accomplished. Some
day some one of them will find out how he has been tricked, and will
return to have the Consul assassinated. This will be a serious loss to
our diplomatic service. The Consul's wife is a fat German woman who
formerly kept a hotel here. Her brother has it now, and runs it as an
annex to a gambling-house. Pat Meakim, the Police Commissioner that I
indicted, but who jumped his bail, introduced me at the reception to
the men, with apparently great self-satisfaction, as 'the pride of the