“This is very condensed,” said Anerley, with wrinkled brows.

“Condensed!” cried Scott.  “Why, it’s sinfully garrulous.  If my old man got a wire like that his language would crack the lamp-shades.  I’d cut out half this; for example, I’d have out ‘journey,’ and ‘nature,’ and ‘rumours.’  But my old man would make a ten-line paragraph of it for all that.”

“How?”

“Well, I’ll do it myself just to show you.  Lend me that stylo.”  He scribbled for a minute in his notebook.  “It works out somewhat on these lines":—­

Mr. Charles H. Merryweather, the eminent railway engineer, who is at present engaged in superintending the construction of the line from Sarras to the front, has met with considerable obstacles to the rapid completion of his important task—­

“Of course the old man knows who Merryweather is, and what he is about, so the word ‘obstacles’ would suggest all that to him.”

He has to-day been compelled to make a journey of forty miles to the front, in order to confer with the general upon the steps which are necessary in order to facilitate the work.  Further particulars of the exact nature of the difficulties met with will be made public at a later date.  All is quiet upon the line of communications, though the usual persistent rumours of the presence of dervishes in the Eastern desert continue to circulate.—­Our own correspondent.

“How’s that?” cried Scott, triumphantly, and his white teeth gleamed suddenly through his black beard.  “That’s the sort of flapdoodle for the dear old public.”

“Will it interest them?”

“Oh, everything interests them.  They want to know all about it; and they like to think that there is a man who is getting a hundred a month simply in order to tell it to them.”

“It’s very kind of you to teach me all this.”

“Well, it is a little unconventional, for, after all, we are here to score over each other if we can.  There are no more eggs, and you must take it out in jam.  Of course, as Mortimer says, such a telegram as this is of no importance one way or another, except to prove to the office that we are in the Soudan, and not at Monte Carlo.  But when it comes to serious work it must be every man for himself.”

“Is that quite necessary?”

“Why, of course it is.”

“I should have thought if three men were to combine and to share their news, they would do better than if they were each to act for himself, and they would have a much pleasanter time of it.”

The two older men sat with their bread-and-jam in their hands, and an expression of genuine disgust upon their faces.

“We are not here to have a pleasant time,” said Mortimer, with a flash through his glasses.  “We are here to do our best for our papers.  How can they score over each other if we do not do the same?  If we all combine we might as well amalgamate with Reuter at once.”