“The Sphinx was at Thebes in the days of OEdipus,” said the Englishman.  “No one would expect to find it anywhere in Greece at the present day.”

“But was Solomon John inquiring for it?” asked Mr. Peterkin.

“Indeed, no!” answered the Englishman; “he went every day to the Pnyx, a famous hill in Athens, where his telegram had warned him he should meet his friends.”

“The Pnyx!” exclaimed Mr. Peterkin; “and how do you spell it?”

“P-n-y-x!” cried Agamemnon,—­“the same letters as in Sphinx!”

“All but the s and the h and the y” said Elizabeth Eliza.

“I often spell Sphinx with a y myself,” said Mr. Peterkin.

“And a telegraph-operator makes such mistakes!” said Agamemnon.

“His telegram had been forwarded to him from Switzerland,” said the Englishman; “it had followed him into the dolomite region, and must have been translated many timed.”

“And of course they could not all have been expected to keep the letters in the right order,” said Elizabeth Eliza.

“And were there two little boys with him?” repeated Mrs. Peterkin.

No; there were no little boys.  But further inquiries satisfied the family that Solomon John must be awaiting them in Athens.  And how natural the mistake!  Mrs. Peterkin said that if she had known of a Pnyx, she should surely have looked for the family there.

Should they then meet Solomon John at the Pnyx, or summon him to Egypt?  It seemed safer to go directly to Athens, especially as Mr. Peterkin and Agamemnon were anxious to visit that city.

It was found that a steamer would leave Alexandria next day for Athens, by way of Smyrna and Constantinople.  This was a roundabout course; but Mr. Peterkin was impatient to leave, and was glad to gain more acquaintance with the world.  Meanwhile they could telegraph their plans to Solomon John, as the English gentleman could give them the address of his hotel.

And Mrs. Peterkin did not now shrink from another voyage.  Her experience on the Nile had made her forget her sufferings in crossing the Atlantic, and she no longer dreaded entering another steamboat.  Their delight in river navigation, indeed, had been so great that the whole family had listened with interest to the descriptions given by their Russian fellow-traveller of steamboat navigation on the Volga—­“the most beautiful river in the world,” as he declared.  Elizabeth Eliza and Mr. Peterkin were eager to try it, and Agamemnon remarked that such a trip would give them an opportunity to visit the renowned fair at Nijninovgorod.  Even Mrs. Peterkin had consented to this expedition, provided they should meet Solomon John and the other little boys.

She started, therefore, on a fresh voyage without any dread, forgetting that the Mediterranean, if not so wide as the Atlantic, is still a sea, and often as tempestuous and uncomfortably “choppy.”  Alas! she was soon to be awakened from her forgetfulness:  the sea was the same old enemy.