"What is crime in one country, is virtue in another," answered Dicky.
"I clamp the wheel sometimes to keep it from spinning too fast. That's
my only duty. I am neither Don Quixote nor Alexander Imperator."

She thought he was referring obliquely to the corvee and the other thing
in which her life-work was involved. She became severe. "It is
compromising with evil," she said.

"No. It's getting a breakfast-roll instead of the whole bakery," he
answered.

"What do you think?" she exclaimed, turning to Kingsley.

"I think there's one man in Egypt who keeps the boiler from bursting," he
answered.

"Oh, don't think I undervalue his Excellency here," she said with a
little laugh. "It is because he is strong, because he matters so much,
that one feels he could do more. Ismail thinks there is no one like him
in the world."

"Except Gordon," interrupted Kingsley.

"Except Gordon, of course; only Gordon isn't in Egypt. And he would do
no good in Egypt. The officials would block his way. It is only in the
Soudan that he could have a free hand, be of real use. There, a man, a
real man, like Gordon, could show the world how civilisation can be
accepted by desert races, despite a crude and cruel religion and low
standards of morality."