“Hullo! here’s our F.R.S.A.!” exclaimed Lord Fulkeward.  “By Jove!  Is that the style you have got yourself up in for tonight?  It looks awfully smart, don’cher know!”

The personage thus complimented adjusted his spectacles and surveyed his acquaintances with a very well-satisfied air.  In truth, Dr. Maxwell Dean had some reason for self-satisfaction, if the knowledge that he possessed one of the cleverest heads in Europe could give a man cause for pride.  He was apparently the only individual in the Gezireh Palace Hotel who had come to Egypt for any serious purpose.  A purpose he had, though what it was he declined to explain.  Reticent, often brusque, and sometimes mysterious in his manner of speech, there was not the slightest doubt that he was at work on something, and that he also had a very trying habit of closely studying every object, small or great, that came under his observation.  He studied the natives to such an extent that he knew every differing shade of color in their skins; he studied Sir Chetwynd Lyle and knew that he occasionally took bribes to “put things” into his paper; he studied Dolly and Muriel Chetwynd Lyle, and knew that they would never succeed in getting husbands; he studied Lady Fulkeward, and thought her very well got up for sixty; he studied Ross Courtney, and knew he would never do anything but kill animals all his life; and he studied the working of the Gezireh Palace Hotel, and saw a fortune rising out of it for the proprietors.  But apart from these ordinary surface things, he studied other matters—­“occult” peculiarities of temperament, “coincidences,” strange occurrences generally.  He could read the Egyptian hieroglyphs perfectly, and he understood the difference between “royal cartouche” scarabei and Birmingham-manufactured ones.  He was never dull; he had plenty to do; and he took everything as it came in its turn.  Even the costume ball for which he had now attired himself did not present itself to him as a “bore,” but as a new vein of information, opening to him fresh glimpses of the genus homo as seen in a state of eccentricity.

“I think,” he now said, complacently, “that the cap and gown look well for a man of my years.  It is a simple garb, but cool, convenient and not unbecoming.  I had thought at first of adopting the dress of an ancient Egyptian priest, but I find it difficult to secure the complete outfit.  I would never wear a costume of the kind that was not in every point historically correct.”

No one smiled.  No one would have dared to smile at Dr. Maxwell Dean when he spoke of “historically correct” things.  He had studied them as he had studied everything, and he knew all about them.

Sir Chetwynd murmured: 

“Quite right—­er—­the ancient designs were very elaborate—­”

“And symbolic,” finished Dr. Dean.  “Symbolic of very curious meanings, I assure you.  But I fear I have interrupted your talk.  Mr. Courtney was speaking about somebody’s beautiful eyes; who is the fair one in question?”