remained ignorant of my friends' adventures? As I discoursed (more or
less) learnedly about Diocletian, and Ptolemy's plot to drown Pompey in
the Nile, something inside was asking, "Has Anthony fallen in love with
Monny Gilder?" "What scrapes has that blessed girl got into?" "Has
anything happened to worry Biddy?" Even that nameless but incomparable
tomb on the hill of Kom esh-Shukafa could not distract my thoughts from
the sealed envelopes; and three very modern handwritings came
obstinately between my eyes and the matchless wall-paintings--paintings
as fresh in their underground hiding-place as if finished yesterday
instead of in days when it was dowdy to be pagan, fashionable to be
Christian.

Corkran, as a soldier, had to guide a band to Aboukir, and chat about
Nelson; point out the medieval fort of Kait Bey, and dash with hired
motors to Adjemi, where Napoleon landed. Kruger took a few studious
pilgrims to that unspoiled Oriental Nile town where the Rosetta Stone
gave the secrets of Ancient Egypt to the world. It was mine to pilot
the "frivolous lot"; to escort them in carriages round the
Italian-looking city when they had absorbed its two chief sights; to give
them a glimpse of the Museum, and to let them see the beauty and fashion
of Alexandria driving out to San Stefano in the late afternoon. Still I
had no chance to read my letters; but, thought I at the hotel, "Now at
last, it has come!" Not at all! People's trunks were missing, or in the
wrong rooms. It was I who had to sooth alarms, and calm rising storms.
It was I who must assure Mrs. Harlow that her room was really
preferable to that of Lady Biddell; and Lady Biddell that she, and not
Miss Hassett-Bean, had the best in the hotel. Still, I had ten minutes
to dress for dinner. Like Mr. Gladstone, I could do it in five, and
have five left for my letters. But hardly had I slipped a paper knife
under the flap of Monny's envelope (I should have felt a vandal to tear