“There are some things which offend the nostrils more than—­odours!” threw back Wynne with a black look in Nigel’s direction, and with a sort of slur in his voice that showed he had been drinking more than was good for him that night.  “I think I can endure the smells of Cairo after—­other things.  Eh, Nigel?” He forced a laugh which was mirthless and unpleasant, and Merriton, with a quick glance into his friends’ faces, saw that they too had seen.  Wynne was in one of his “devil” humours, and all the fun and joking and merriment in the world would never get him out of it.  His pity for the man suddenly died a natural death.  The very evident fact that Wynne had been drinking rather heavily merely added a further distaste to it all.  He wished heartily that he had never ventured upon this act of unwanted friendliness and given a dinner in his honour.  Wynne was going to be the spectre at the feast, and it looked like being a poor sort of show after all.

“Come, buck up, old chap!” broke out Tony West, the irrepressible.  “Try to look a little less like a soured lemon, if you can!  Or we’ll begin to think that you’ve been and gone and done something you’re sorry for, and are trying to work it off on us instead.”

“Hello, here’s Doctor Johnson,” as the venerable Bartholomew entered the room.  “How goes it to-night, sir?  A fine night, what?  Behold the king of the feast, his serene and mighty—­oh extremely mighty!—­highness Prince Dacre Wynne, world explorer and soon to be lord-high-sniffer of Cairo’s smells!  Don’t envy him the task, do you?”

He bowed with a flourish to the doctor who chuckled and his keen eyes, fringed with snow-white lashes, danced.  He wore a rather long, extremely untidy beard, and his shirt-front as always was crumpled and worn.  Anything more unlike a doctor it would be hard to imagine.  But he was a clever one, nevertheless.

“Well, my talkative young parrot,” he greeted West affectionately, “and how are you?...  And who’s party is this, anyhow?  Yours or Merriton’s?  You seem to be putting yourself rather more to the fore than usual.”

“Well, I’ll soon be goin’ aft,” retorted West with a wide grin.  “When old Nigel gets his innings.  He’s as chockful of news as an egg is of meat.”  West was one of the chosen few who had already heard of Nigel’s engagement, and he was rather like a gossipy old woman—­but his friends forgave it in him.

Merriton gave him a shove, and he fell back upon Wynne, emitting a portentous groan.

“What the devil—?” began that gentleman, in a testy voice.

Tony grinned.

“Nigel was ever thus!” he murmured, with uplifted eyes.