exceedingly convenient for these mixed assemblies." He withdrew,
caressing his protuberant paunch with some dignity, as the two men
glanced fiercely at each other.

In another moment they might have sprung at each other's throats.
But luckily at this instant a curtain was pushed aside as if by
some waiting listener, and a thin man entered, dressed in cap and
gown,--which would have been simply academic but for his carrying
in one hand behind him a bundle of birch twigs. It was Dr. Haustus
Pilgrim, a noted London practitioner and specialist, dressed as "Ye
Olde-fashioned Pedagogue." He was presumably spending his holiday
on the Nile in a large dahabiyeh with a number of friends, among
whom he counted the two momentary antagonists he had just
interrupted; but those who knew the doctor's far-reaching knowledge
and cryptic researches believed he had his own scientific motives.

The two men turned quickly as he entered; the angry light faded
from their eyes, and an awed and respectful submission to the
intruder took its place. He walked quietly toward them, put a
lozenge in the mouth of one and felt the pulse of the other, gazing
critically at both.

"We will be all right in a moment," he said with professional
confidence.

"I say!" said Fitz-Fulke, gazing at the doctor's costume, "you look
dooced smart in those togs, don'tcherknow."

"They suit me," said the doctor, with a playful swish of his birch
twigs, at which the two grave men shuddered. "But you were