Such was the blissful, self-satisfied ignorance of Sir Midas Pyle,
or as Lord Fitz-Fulke, with his delightful imitation of the East
London accent, called him, Sir "Myde His Pyle," as he leaned back
on his divan in the Grand Cairo Hotel. He was the vulgar editor
and proprietor of a vulgar London newspaper, and had brought his
wife with him, who was vainly trying to marry off his faded
daughters. There was to be a fancy-dress ball at the hotel that
night, and Lady Pyle hoped that her girls, if properly disguised,
might have a better chance. Here, too, was Lady Fitz-Fulke, whose
mother was immortalized by Byron--sixty if a day, yet still
dressing youthfully--who had sought the land of the Sphinx in the
faint hope that in the contiguity of that lady she might pass for
being young. Alaster McFeckless, a splendid young Scotchman,--
already dressed as a Florentine sailor of the fifteenth century,
which enabled him to show his magnificent calves quite as well as
in his native highland dress, and who had added with characteristic
noble pride a sporran to his costume, was lolling on another divan.

"Oh, those exquisite, those magnificent eyes of hers! Eh, sirs!"
he murmured suddenly, as waking from a dream.

"Oh, damn her eyes!" said Lord Fitz-Fulke languidly. "Tell you
what, old man, you're just gone on that girl!"

"Ha!" roared MeFeckless, springing to his feet, "ye will be using
such language of the bonniest"--

"You will excuse me, gentlemen," said Sir Midas,--who hated scenes
unless he had a trusted reporter with him,--"but I think it is time
for me to go upstairs and put on my Windsor uniform, which I find