screen by a magic lantern.

"'And then he showed me a little carving,' went on Andy, 'that anybody
could see was a wonderful thing. It was something like 2,000 years
old, he said. It was a lotus flower with a woman's face in it carved
out of a solid piece of ivory.

"Scudder looks it up in a catalogue and describes it. An Egyptian
carver named Khafra made two of 'em for King Rameses II. about the
year B.C. The other one can't be found. The junkshops and antique bugs
have rubbered all Europe for it, but it seems to be out of stock.
Scudder paid $2,000 for the one he has.'

"'Oh, well,' says I, 'this sounds like the purling of a rill to me. I
thought we came here to teach the millionaires business, instead of
learning art from 'em?'

"'Be patient,' says Andy, kindly. 'Maybe we will see a rift in the
smoke ere long.'

"All the next morning Andy was out. I didn't see him until about noon.
He came to the hotel and called me into his room across the hall. He
pulled a roundish bundle about as big as a goose egg out of his pocket
and unwrapped it. It was an ivory carving just as he had described the
millionaire's to me.

"'I went in an old second hand store and pawnshop a while ago,' says
Andy, 'and I see this half hidden under a lot of old daggers and
truck. The pawnbroker said he'd had it several years and thinks it was
soaked by some Arabs or Turks or some foreign dubs that used to live