mish-mish was in bloom.... He smelt the Desert ... grey sepulchre of
cancelled cycles.... The stillness of her interminable reaches dropped
down upon old London....

The magic of the sand stole round him in its silent-footed tempest.

And while he struggled with that strange, capacious sack, the piles of
clothing ran into shapes of gleaming Bedouin faces; London garments
settled down with the mournful sound of camels' feet, half dropping
wind, half water flowing underground--sound that old Time has brought
over into modern life and left a moment for our wonder and perhaps our
tears.

He rose at length with the excitement of some deep enchantment in his
eyes. The thought of Egypt plunged ever so deeply into him, carrying
him into depths where he found it difficult to breathe, so strangely far
away it seemed, yet indefinably familiar. He lost his way. A touch of
fear came with it.

"A sack like that is the wonder of the world," he laughed again, kicking
the unwieldy, sausage-shaped monster into a corner of the room, and
sitting down to write the thrilling labels: "Felix Henriot, Alexandria
_via_ Marseilles." But his pen blotted the letters; there was sand in
it. He rewrote the words. Then he remembered a dozen things he had left
out. Impatiently, yet with confusion somewhere, he stuffed them in. They
ran away into shifting heaps; they disappeared; they emerged suddenly
again. It was like packing hot, dry, flowing sand. From the pockets of a
coat--he had worn it last summer down Dorset way--out trickled sand.
There was sand in his mind and thoughts.