The Luck of Thirteen | Page 5

into our reserved compartment, which was only a coupé, and had seized
the window seat. Jan found him lubricating his mouth, already full of
dinner, with wine from a bottle. As he showed no signs of seeing
reason from the male, Jo tried feminine indignation. "That seat is

mine," she snapped to his back-tilted head.
"Good. I exact nothing," he said, wiping his moustache upwards. She
suggested that if any exacting was to be done she possessed the
exclusive rights.
"Quel pays," he answered. Jo thought he was casting aspersions on
England and on her as the nearest representative, and the air became
distinctly peppery. The Frenchman hurriedly explained that he was
alluding to Serbia, so they buried the hatchet and became
acquaintances.
* * * * *
Uskub, or Skoplje, and one hour to wait. All about the great plains the
mountains were just growing ruddy with the dawn, and we gulped
boiling coffee at the station restaurant.
One of the American doctors seemed restless. Some one had told him it
was advisable to keep an eye on the luggage. They began to shunt the
train, and soon he was stumbling about the sidings in a resolute attempt
not to lose sight of the luggage van. We sympathetically wished him
good luck and walked past into the Turkish quarter, adopted by two
dogs which followed us all the way. We had a hurried glimpse of
queer-shaped, many-coloured houses, trousered women, and a general
Turkishness.
We returned to find our American friend furious, full of the superior
methods of luggage registration in the States.
We had beer with him at the frontier, delicious cool stuff with a
mollifying influence. He told us he held the record for one month's
hernia operations in Serbia. We were later to meet his rival, a Canadian
doctor, in Montenegro.
Locked in the train, we awaited the medical examination, and sat
feeling self-consciously healthy. At last the Greek doctor opened the
door, glanced at a knapsack, and vanished. We were certified healthy.

It was a beautiful dark blue night when we arrived at Salonika. Crowds
of people were dining at little tables which filled the streets off the
quay, in spite of the awful smells which came up from the harbour.
It is impossible to sleep late in Salonika. Soon after dawn children
possess the town--bootblacks, paper-sellers, perambulating drapers'
shops; all children crying their wares noisily. The only commodity that
the children don't peddle is undertaken by mules laden with glass
fronted cases hanging on each side and which are filled with meat.
We breakfasted in the street, revelling in the early morning and shooing
away the children, who never gave us a moment's grace. In self-defence
we had our boots blacked, for the ambulating bootblack molests no
longer the owner of a well-polished pair of boots. It is queer to walk
about in a town where one-third of the population is only pecuniarily
interested in the momentary appearance of feet and never look at a face,
like the man with the muckrake with eyes glued on life as it is led two
inches from the ground.
When we had finished searching for disinfectors and dentists we
wandered up the hill through the romantic streets. Jan sketched busily,
but toothache had rather sapped Jo's industry, and she generally found
some large stone to sit on, whence to contemplate.
An old woman's face, peering round the doorway, discovered her
sitting on the doorstep, a Greek dustman gazing stupidly at her.
In two minutes they were talking hard. The old woman was a Bulgarian,
but they were able to understand each other. What Jo told the old
woman was translated to the dustman, and when Jan came up they were
introduced each to the other, the dustman with his broom bowing to the
ground like some old-time court usher.
Once a Greek woman offered a chair to Jo. She was much embarrassed,
as the only Greek words she had picked up were "How much?" and
"Yet another;" and as both seemed unsuitable she tried to put her
gratitude into the width of her smile.

We scrambled on ever afterwards through streets which were more like
cliff climbs than roads. The sun grew red till all Salonika lay at our feet
a maze of magenta shadow. We sat down in an old Turkish cemetery,
where we could watch the old wall sliding down to plains of gold,
where, falling into ruins, it lent its degraded stones for the construction
of Turkish hovels.
A kitten with paralysed hind legs crawled up to us and accepted a little
rubbing. When dusk came we moved on, marvelling at the
inexhaustible picturesqueness of Salonika.
As we clambered down the breakneck paths, the priests were
illuminating the minarets with hundreds of twinkling lights.
The next day