there?'

'I've read the newspapers pretty regularly since I went to hospital.
I've got some pals in the Mesopotamia show, and of course I'm
keen to know what is going to happen at Gallipoli and Salonika. I
gather that Egypt is pretty safe.'

'If you will give me your attention for ten minutes I will
supplement your newspaper reading.'

Sir Walter lay back in an arm-chair and spoke to the ceiling. It was
the best story, the clearest and the fullest, I had ever got of any bit of
the war. He told me just how and why and when Turkey had left the
rails. I heard about her grievances over our seizure of her ironclads,
of the mischief the coming of the _Goeben_ had wrought, of Enver and
his precious Committee and the way they had got a cinch on the old
Turk. When he had spoken for a bit, he began to question me.

'You are an intelligent fellow, and you will ask how a Polish
adventurer, meaning Enver, and a collection of Jews and gipsies
should have got control of a proud race. The ordinary man will tell
you that it was German organization backed up with German
money and German arms. You will inquire again how, since Turkey
is primarily a religious power, Islam has played so small a part in it
all. The Sheikh-ul-Islam is neglected, and though the Kaiser proclaims
a Holy War and calls himself Hadji Mohammed Guilliamo,
and says the Hohenzollerns are descended from the Prophet, that
seems to have fallen pretty flat. The ordinary man again will answer
that Islam in Turkey is becoming a back number, and that Krupp
guns are the new gods. Yet - I don't know. I do not quite believe