Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1900-10-07
THE ORDEAL OF FIRE.
BY ALLEN UPWARD,
Author of the "Secrets of the Courts of Europe" "The Yellow Hand,
aThe Accused Princess" aThe Prince of Balkistan," &C.


Almost involuntarily Vaughan raised
his hand and lifted his hat, as he saw
before him the building round which
all the centuries had clustered in adj
miration. Was it not there, after all,
that lay the true secret OF his journey.
the true reason why even the great
official governments of Europe shrank
from carrying out their policy at the
expense of the nation of Hellas? The
race which possessed the ~handiwork
of Phedias, commanded the reverence
of mankind; while the Acropolis stood
Greece must always be a great nation.
That Parthenon was its palladium.
At last they had arrived at Athens.
The carriage drew up before the por-
tico of the Hotel de Grande Betragne,
a stately structure situated on the
principal square of Athens, and looking
right across to the Royal Palace.
The person who had bestowed on it
the name of Grande Betragne had no
doubt supposed that he was paying a
compliment to the people of Great Bril-
/, tain, whom no doubt he hoped to at
tract by a lame which must have such
a homely and familiar sound in their
ears; and it had not occurred to him
that his purpose might be achieved
even more thoroughly by calling 1t the
Hotel of Great Britain"
1t is a popular delusion among the
inhabitants of Greece that French is
the natural language of Englishmen.
During the mex few days Vaughan
discovered that even the most intelli-
gent of the Greeks laboured unoer this
delusion. Whenever a Greek in con
~versation with him referred to Plraeus
or to Epirus, he would Immediately
proceed to translate the name for the
benefit of his English listener as La
Piree or Epire, with the firm impress
sion that by so doing he was rendering
himselff more ineligible.
The Hotel Grande Bretagne, in spite
of its mamie, was an interesting place
to stay at. A broad terrace running
along the front of the house formed a
pleasant lounge, on which the English
visitors sat and watched the crowd
passing up and down the square and
the blue and white flag flying over the
Palace beyond.
Before they had been seated there
many minutes a newsboy rushed fran
tically up the steps, selling those min
iature sheets which answer for news
papers in the Greek capital.
In the first of these sheets, which
they bought out of c~rTtosity, Vaughan
a SURPRISED and Smith delighted, to
find their W names. Already the
news that the first instalment of En-
glish Volunteers had arrived had reach
ed the newspaper offices, and given rise
to an enthusiastic paragraph in which
the readers of the paper were led to be-
lieve that a phalanx of at least a thous-
and men, armed and drilled, were en-
camped at the edge of the London
docks waiting for the signal to proceed
to the Piraeus.
Vaughan was somewhat disturbed at
the exaggerated estimate which the
Greeks had evidently been led to form
of Mr.. Septimus Calcraft's powers.
However, he could only hope that the
Greeks were sufficiently accustomed
to- the exaggerations published among
their fellow countrymen not to be en-
tirely led astray.
Seated beside them on the terrace
was an old Greek gentleman who could
speak English, and who took the place
of their travelling companion in inter-
preting the contents of the newspaper
to the Englishmen. He was a fine
type of the best class in Greece, the
business men whose enterprise has
made King Georges kingdom more
fourishing than its natural
would have enabled it to be.
The Greeks are great traders. In
that sense they are the Englishmen of
the East; and it was popularity said in
Athens that though the Government
was the poorest in the world Athens
contained more millionaires in proper
ton to its population than any other