’Are there any more ideas, then, that are going to be tried on this country?’

‘Two or three,’ he replied placidly.  ’They are all generous; but they are all ridiculous.  Egypt is not a place where one should promulgate ridiculous ideas.’

‘But my shares—­my shares!’ I cried.  ’They have already dropped several points.’

‘It is possible.  They will drop more.  Then they will rise.’

‘Thank you.  But why?’

’Because the idea is fundamentally absurd.  That will never be admitted by your people, but there will be arrangements, accommodations, adjustments, till it is all the same as it used to be.  It will be the concern of the Permanent Official—­poor devil!—­to pull it straight.  It is always his concern.  Meantime, prices will rise for all things.’

‘Why?’

’Because the land is the chief security in Egypt.  If a man cannot borrow on that security, the rates of interest will increase on whatever other security he offers.  That will affect all work and wages and Government contracts.’

He put it so convincingly and with so many historical illustrations that I saw whole perspectives of the old energetic Pharaohs, masters of life and death along the River, checked in mid-career by cold-blooded accountants chanting that not even the Gods themselves can make two plus two more than four.  And the vision ran down through the ages to one little earnest head on a Cook’s steamer, bent sideways over the vital problem of rearranging ‘our National Flag’ so that it should be ’easier to count the stars.’

For the thousandth time:  Praised be Allah for the diversity of His creatures!

V

DEAD KINGS

The Swiss are the only people who have taken the trouble to master the art of hotel-keeping.  Consequently, in the things that really matter—­beds, baths, and victuals—­they control Egypt; and since every land always throws back to its aboriginal life (which is why the United States delight in telling aged stories), any ancient Egyptian would at once understand and join in with the life that roars through the nickel-plumbed tourist-barracks on the river, where all the world frolics in the sunshine.  At first sight, the show lends itself to cheap moralising, till one recalls that one only sees busy folk when they are idle, and rich folk when they have made their money.  A citizen of the United States—­his first trip abroad—­pointed out a middle-aged Anglo-Saxon who was relaxing after the manner of several school-boys.

‘There’s a sample!’ said the Son of Hustle scornfully.  ’Tell me, he ever did anything in his life?’ Unluckily he had pitched upon one who, when he is in collar, reckons thirteen and a half hours a fairish day’s work.