Somehow Pavlovitch discovered that he and the bishop were the same age, forty-eight.  We contrasted Pavlovitch’s spare athletic frame with the well-fed shape of the bishop, and felt instinctively which was the better Christian.  Coffee and slatka were brought in.  This slatka is always handed to callers in well-regulated Serbian households.  It is jam accompanied by many little spoons and glasses of water.  Each guest dips out a spoonful, licks the spoon, drinks the water, and places his spoon in the glass.  There is also a curious custom with regard to the coffee.  If a guest outstays his welcome, a second cup is brought in and ceremoniously placed before him—­but, of course, this hint depends upon how it is done.

“It is Friday,” remarked Pavlovitch, regretfully.  “Odder days we gits mighty good meal.”  He was very anxious for us to stay the night so that we should fit in a first-class breakfast, but the morrow was the Ipek fair, and we could not miss that.

Night was coming so we hurried off and drove away.  The horses went quite fast, as we had made them a present of some barley.  We had discovered that since the beginning of the war, when they had been requisitioned by the Montenegrin Government, they had lived on nothing but hay, and the owner, who was driving them, said that they would soon die, and that when they did he would not receive a penny and would be a ruined man.  He added pathetically—­

“One does not like to see one’s beasts die like that, for after all one is fond of them.”

We arrived after dark, and ordered supper for three.  The inn lady was scandalized.

“But that is a common soldier,” she said.  “There are many fine folk in the dining-room, arrived to-day.  The General—­”

So we dined upon the landing.

The next day we got up very early, went down to the dining-room and found it was full of sleeping forms; we had coffee in our room.

We wandered round the market.  It was still too early, people were arriving and spreading their wares, men were hanging bright carpets on the white walls.  Beggars were everywhere, exhibiting their gains in front of them.  If one could understand they seemed to cry like this—­

“Ere y’are, the old firm; put your generous money on the real thing.  I ’as more misery to the square inch than any other ’as to the square yard.”

We found bargaining impossible, as they only spoke Albanian, and we could only get as far as “Sar,” how much.

Pavlovitch turned up later and was very helpful.  We hurried him to a silver shop which was displaying a round silver boss.  He beat them down from sixteen to ten dinars, after which we plunged into a side street filled with women squatted cross-legged behind a collection of everything that an industrious woman who owns sheep can confection.

“I have nothing for thee,” said an old woman to Jo, who peered into her basket—­Pavlovitch translating.