THE EVE OF THE GATHERING
"Yes, you are going very slow indeed, but it is a fault on the right side. Something must stop them, which even in the eyes of the Turks will seem reasonable and enable them all to disperse again, for they will all go together from Patras. Oh, why did my mother give birth to a fool?"
Mitsos suddenly got up and held his finger in the air.
"Wait a minute," he cried, "don't speak to me, Uncle Nicholas.… Ah, this is it. We will imagine there is a Turk in Tripoli friendly to Germanos. We will imagine he sends a letter of warning to Germanos. Do you see? Germanos reads the letter aloud to the fathers, and they send to Tripoli demanding assurance of their safety, and so disperse. Quick, Uncle Nicholas, write a letter from the friendly Turk in Tripoli to Germanos, which he will read the fathers on the journey."
Nicholas stared at Mitsos in sheer astonishment for a moment.
"Out of the mouth of big babes and sucklings!" he ejaculated. "Oh, Mitsos, but it is no less than a grand idea. Tell me again."
Mitsos was flushed with excitement.
"Oh, Uncle Nicholas, but it's plainer than the sun," he cried. "I go to Patras, and before now the summons for the primates and bishops will have come. I take to Germanos your instructions that they assemble as if to go, and make a day's journey or two days' journey. Then one morning there comes to Germanos a letter from Tripoli, from a Turk to whom he has been a friend. 'Do not go,' it says, 'without an assurance of your safety, for the Turks are treacherous.' So Germanos sends back a messenger to Tripoli to ask for an assurance of safety, and meantime they all disperse again, and by the time the Turks can bring them together with an assurance of
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