Mrs. Reid, lay another place. I am dreadfully hungry; nothing gives me
such an appetite as unrolling mummies; it involves so much intellectual
wear and tear, in addition to the physical labour. Eat, man, eat. We
will talk afterwards."

So we ate, Higgs largely, for his appetite was always excellent, perhaps
because he was then practically a teetotaller; Mr. Orme very moderately,
and I as becomes a person who has lived for months at a time on
dates--mainly of vegetables, which, with fruits, form my principal
diet--that is, if these are available, for at a pinch I can exist on
anything.

When the meal was finished and our glasses had been filled with port,
Higgs helped himself to water, lit the large meerschaum pipe he always
smokes, and pushed round the tobacco-jar which had once served as a
sepulchural urn for the heart of an old Egyptian.

"Now, Adams," he said when we also had filled our pipes, "tell us what
has brought you back from the Shades. In short, your story, man, your
story."

I drew the ring he had noticed off my hand, a thick band of rather
light-coloured gold of a size such as an ordinary woman might wear upon
her first or second finger, in which was set a splendid slab of
sapphire engraved with curious and archaic characters. Pointing to these
characters, I asked Higgs if he could read them.

"Read them? Of course," he answered, producing a magnifying glass.
"Can't you? No, I remember; you never were good at anything more than
fifty years old. Hullo! this is early Hebrew. Ah! I've got it," and he