‘Haow’s that?’ he cut in sharply at a pause.

He was told how, and went on to drain my friend dry concerning that railroad, out of sheer fraternal interest, as he explained, in ’any darn’ thing that’s being made anywheres,’

‘So you see,’ my friend went on, ’we shall be bringing Abyssinian cattle into Cairo.’

‘On the hoof?’ One quick glance at the Desert ranges.

’No, no!  By rail and River.  And after that we’re going to grow cotton between the Blue and the White Nile and knock spots out of the States.’

‘Ha-ow’s that?’

‘This way.’  The speaker spread his first and second fingers fanwise under the big, interested beak.  ’That’s the Blue Nile.  And that’s the White.  There’s a difference of so many feet between ’em, an’ in that fork here, ‘tween my fingers, we shall—­’

’I see.  Irrigate on the strength of the little difference in the levels.  How many acres?’

Again Los Angeles was told.  He expanded like a frog in a shower.  ‘An’ I thought,’ he murmured, ’Egypt was all mummies and the Bible! I used to know something about cotton.  Now we’ll talk.’

All that day the two paced the deck with the absorbed insolente of lovers; and, lover-like, each would steal away and tell me what a splendid soul was his companion.

That was one type; but there were others—­professional men who did not make or sell things—­and these the hand of an all-exacting Democracy seemed to have run into one mould.  They ’were not reticent, but no matter whence they hailed, their talk was as standardised as the fittings of a Pullman.

I hinted something of this to a woman aboard who was learned in their sermons of either language.

‘I think,’ she began, ‘that the staleness you complain of—­’

‘I never said “staleness,"’ I protested.

’But you thought it.  The staleness you noticed is due to our men being so largely educated by old women—­old maids.  Practically till he goes to College, and not always then, a boy can’t get away from them.’

‘Then what happens?’

’The natural result.  A man’s instinct is to teach a boy to think for himself.  If a woman can’t make a boy think as she thinks, she sits down and cries.  A man hasn’t any standards.  He makes ’em.  A woman’s the most standardised being in the world.  She has to be. Now d’you see?’

‘Not yet.’

’Well, our trouble in America is that we’re being school-marmed to death.  You can see it in any paper you pick up.  What were those men talking about just now?’

‘Food adulteration, police-reform, and beautifying waste-lots in towns,’ I replied promptly.

She threw up her hands.  ‘I knew it!’ she cried.  ’Our great National Policy of co-educational housekeeping!  Ham-frills and pillow-shams.  Did you ever know a man get a woman’s respect by parading around creation with a dish-clout pinned to his coat-tails?’