Note 32 — Chapter VIII · THE PORT OF THE WILDERNESS

Some years ago, our minister to Turkey, who had been promised an audience with Abdul Hamid, was made to wait half a day in an anteroom of the palace without being offered coffee. So far as I know, that fact was never published; for the American newspapers seem to have quite missed the significance of the omission, and our representative himself apparently did not realize that he had been publicly insulted. But the experienced diplomat who was then in charge of our Department of State cabled the minister, in case of further affront, to leave Constantinople immediately.