None had the peculiar verve and dash of Take Ionesco, but one or two were decidedly “smooth” in a grave, slightly heavy way, and all suggested stubbornness, intense patriotism, and a keen eye for the main chance.

There is little “society” or formal entertaining in Sofia, little display and little, apparently, of that state of mind which, in Bucarest, is suggested by the handsome, two-horse public carriages at a time when there are not enough horses and carriages to go round.  One-horse carriages are impracticable, because the Rumanian, or at least the Bucareiio, thinks one horse beneath his dignity, while a trolley-car—­although there are trolley-cars—­is, of course, not to be thought of.

People on the streets and in the parks were “nice"-looking rather than smart, and the young officers from the military school, who were everywhere, as fine and soldier-like young men as I had seen anywhere in Europe.  They and the common soldiers, with their fine shoulders and chests and wiry torsos, looked as though they were made for their work, and took to it like ducks to water.

The palace is on the central square—­an unpretentious building in the trees, with a driveway leading up from two gates, at which stand two motionless sentries, each with one stiff feather in his cap.  It is such an entrance as you might expect to find at any comfortable country place at home, and one day, when some student volunteers went by on a practise march, and cheered as they passed, I saw the King, with the Queen and one or two others, stroll down the drive and bow just as if he, too, were some comfortable country gentleman.

There is a music-hall in Sofia, but on the two nights I went to it there were scarce twenty in the audience.  There are various beer gardens with music, and, of course, moving pictures, but it was interesting, in contrast with Bucarest to find the crowd going to the National Theatre to see Tolstoi’s “Living Corpse.”  The stock company, moderately subsidized by the government, gives drama and opera on alternate nights.  I barely got a seat for the Tolstoi play, and the doorkeeper said that the house was always sold out.

The Bulgarians, in short, are simple, and what the Rumanians would call “serieux”—­you must abandon all notion of finding here anything like the little comic-opera kingdoms invented by some of our novelists.  It was in Bulgaria, as I recall it, that Mr. Shaw put “Arms and the Man,” and the fun lay, as you will remember, in the contrast between the outworn, feudal notions of the natives and the intense matter-of-factness of the modern Swiss professional soldier.

You will recall the doubts of the heroine’s male relatives as to whether Bluntschli was good enough for her, their ingenuous attempts to impress him, by describing the style in which she was accustomed to live, and his unimpressed response that his father had so and so many table-cloths, so many horses, so many hundreds of plates, etc.  Who was he, then—­king of his country?  Oh, no, indeed—­he ran a hotel.  Mr. Shaw’s fun is all right of itself, but has about as much application to Bulgaria or Sofia as to Wyoming or Denver.