it) when one of the hotel managers knocked at my door. A gentleman was
being very angry in the dining-room. He insisted on seeing me. He said
he had been Lord Mayor of London, and ought to have a window-table. All
these were previously engaged. What was to be done? Would I kindly come
at once?

I persuaded Sir John that window-tables were the least desirable, owing
to draughts, and returning to my room, had four minutes to dress or
risk further rows. After dinner Miss Hassett-Bean burst into tears
because she was alone in the world owing to the marmoset's death from
seasickness; and now that she was growing old nobody cared to talk to
her. I argued that people were shy because she was more important than
they, and had a reputation for satire. It took half an hour for the
lady's nose to go from red to pink (I think she had papier poudre in
her handkerchief); and then I was obliged to walk on the beach with
Miss Enid Biddell to keep Mr. Watts from proposing. As Snell relieved
me from sentry duty, I was called by Kruger to discuss certain details
of next morning's start for Cairo; and at midnight, when I crawled to
my room a shattered wreck, the letters were still unread.

"I'm incapable of caring now," I groaned, "what has happened to any of
them. If an earthquake has swallowed up our mountain, and Anthony's
married Monny, and Brigit's been abducted, or vice versa, and Miss
Guest has gone off with the jewels, it will leave me calm."

That was the spirit in which I tossed up a coin to see which letter to
read first. Heads, Monny's; tails, Anthony's; but the penny rolled
away, far under the bed where collar-buttons go, and so--I opened
Biddy's. She began: