There was a scraping of fiddles, too, and the sound of human talk.

We paid the negro at the door, and passed from the bitter afternoon into a garish saloon.
There were forty or fifty people there, drinking coffee and sirops and filling the air with the fumes of latakia.

Most of them were Turks in European clothes and the fez, but there were some German officers and what looked like German civilians--Army Service Corps clerks, probably, and mechanics from the Arsenal.

A woman in cheap finery was tinkling at the piano, and there were several shrill females with the officers.
Peter and I sat down modestly in the nearest corner, where old Kuprasso saw us and sent us coffee.

A girl who looked like a Jewess came over to us and talked French, but I shook my head and she went off again.
Presently a girl came on the stage and danced, a silly affair, all a clashing of tambourines and wriggling.