Chapter XXXI: Letter XXII

I had made up my mind to go to Cairo, and I was coming up to say
farewell to you and mother. For I like not Beirut, where one in
winter must go about in top-boots, and in a dust-coat in summer.
I wonder what Rousseau, who called Paris the city of mud, would
have said of this? Besides, a city ruled by boatmen is not a
city for gentlemen to live in. So, I made up my mind to get out
of it, and quickly. But yesterday morning, before I had taken my
coffee, some one knocked at my door. I open, and lo, a policeman
in shabby uniform, makes inquiry about Khalid. What have I done,
I thought, to deserve this visit? And before I had time to
imagine the worst, he delivers a card from the Deputy to Syria
of the Union and Progress Society of Salonique. I am desired in
this to come at my earliest convenience to the Club to meet this
gentleman. There, I am received by an Army Officer and a certain
Ahmed Bey. And after the coffee and the formalities of civility
are over, I am asked to accompany them on a tour to the
principal cities of upper Syria--to Damascus, Homs, Hama, and
Aleppo. The young Army Officer is to speechify in Turkish, I, in
Arabic, and Ahmed Bey, who is as oleaginous as a Turk could be,
will take up, I think, the collection. Seeing in this a chance
to spread the Idea among our people, I accept, and in a
fortnight we shall be in Damascus. You must come there, for I am
burning to meet and embrace you.