"Chicken in this desert!" Will wondered irreverently, and Fred, who
likes his English to have dictionary meanings, rose from his chair
in wrath. The nurse made that the cue for getting rid of us.

"Take Mr. Oakes away!" she urged, laughing. "He threatened to kill
a man this morning. There's too much murder in Tarsus now. If he
should add to it--"

"You know it wasn't on my account," Fred objected. "It was what
he wrote--and said of you. Why, he has had you prayed for publicly
by name, and you washing the brute's feet! Let me back in there
for just five minutes, and I'll show what a hospital case should
really look like!"

"Take him away!" she laughed. "Isn't it bad enough to be prayed
for? Must I get into the papers, too, as heroine of a scandal?"

The head missionary was not there to say good-by to, life in his
case being too serious an affair to waste minutes of a precious morning
on farewells, so we packed Fred into the waiting carriage and drove
all the way to Mersina, where we interrupted Monty's mid-afternoon
game of chess.

Fred Oakes and Monty were the closest friends I ever met--one problem
for an enemy--one stout, two-headed, most dependable ally for the
lucky man or woman they called friend.

"Oh, hullo!" said Monty over his shoulder, as our names were called
out by the stately consular kavass.