say, too, if any trouble while you paint I go him--
ah, effendi, it is only Joe Hornstog can do these
things. The Pasha, he know me--all good Turk-men
know me. Where we paint now, subito? In the
plaza, or in the patio of the Valedee, like last year?"

"Neither. We go first to the Mosque of Suleiman.
I want the view through the gate of the court-yard,
with the mosque in the background. Best place is
below the cafe. Pick up those traps and come along."

Thus it was that on this particular summer afternoon
Joe and I found ourselves on the shadow side
of a wall up a crooked, break-neck street paved with
rocks, each as big as a dress-suit case, from which I
got a full view of the wonderful mosque tossing its
splendors into the still air, its cresting of minarets
so much frozen spray against the blue.

The little comedy--or shall I say tragedy?--began
a few minutes after I had opened my easel--I sitting
crouched in the shadow, my elbow touching the
plastered wall. Only Joe and I were present.
Yusuf, the guard, a skinny, half-fed Turk in fez
and European dress, had as usual betaken himself
to the cafe fronting the same sidewalk on which I
sat, but half a block away; far enough to be out of
hearing, but near enough to miss my presence should
I decamp suddenly without notifying him. There
he drank some fifty cups of coffee, each one the size