in every spot where they congregate, whether it be east, west, north, or south.  On the Riviera they find little to do except meet at Rumpelmayer’s at Cannes, the London House at Nice, or the Casino at Monte-Carlo; and in Cairo they inaugurate a miniature London “season” over again, worked in the same groove of dinners, dances, drives, picnics, flirtations, and matrimonial engagements.  But the Cairene season has perhaps some advantage over the London one so far as this particular set of “swagger” folk are concerned—­it is less hampered by the proprieties.  One can be more “free,” you know!  You may take a little walk into “Old” Cairo, and turning a corner you may catch glimpses of what Mark Twain calls “Oriental simplicity,” namely, picturesquely-composed groups of “dear delightful” Arabs whose clothing is no more than primitive custom makes strictly necessary.  These kind of “tableaux vivants” or “art studies” give quite a thrill of novelty to Cairene-English Society,—­a touch of savagery,—­a soupcon of peculiarity which is entirely lacking to fashionable London.  Then, it must be remembered that the “children of the desert” have been led by gentle degrees to understand that for harboring the strange locusts imported into their land by Cook, and the still stranger specimens of unclassified insect called Upper Ten, which imports itself, they will receive “backsheesh.”

“Backsheesh” is a certain source of comfort to all nations, and translates itself with sweetest euphony into all languages, and the desert-born tribes have justice on their side when they demand as much of it as they can get, rightfully or wrongfully.  They deserve to gain some sort of advantage out of the odd-looking swarms of Western invaders who amaze them by their dress and affront them by their manners.  “Backsheesh,” therefore, has become the perpetual cry of the Desert-Born,—­it is the only means of offence and defence left to them, and very naturally they cling to it with fervor and resolution.  And who shall blame them?  The tall, majestic, meditative Arab—­superb as mere man, and standing naked-footed on his sandy native soil, with his one rough garment flung round his loins and his great black eyes fronting, eagle-like, the sun—­merits something considerable for condescending to act as guide and servant to the Western moneyed civilian who clothes his lower limbs in straight, funnel-like cloth casings, shaped to the strict resemblance of an elephant’s legs, and finishes the graceful design by enclosing the rest of his body in a stiff shirt wherein he can scarcely move, and a square-cut coat which divides him neatly in twain by a line immediately above the knee, with the effect of lessening his height by several inches.  The Desert-Born surveys him gravely and in civil compassion, sometimes with a muttered prayer against the hideousness of him, but on the whole with patience and equanimity,—­influenced by considerations of “backsheesh.”  And the English “season” whirls lightly