two days ago that
we passed Toski, where the dragoman said there had been a fight. Is that
all bluff also?"
"Pah, my friend, you do not know the English. You look at them as you
see them with their pipes and their contented faces, and you say, 'Now,
these are good, simple folk who will never hurt any one.' But all the
time they are thinking and watching and planning. 'Here is Egypt weak,'
they cry. '_Allons!_' and down they swoop like a gull upon a crust. 'You
have no right there,' says the world. 'Come out of it!' But England has
already begun to tidy everything, just like the good Miss Adams when she
forces her way into the house of an Arab. 'Come out,' says the world.
'Certainly,' says England; 'just wait one little minute until I have
made everything nice and proper.' So the world waits for a year or so,
and then it says once again, 'Come out.' 'Just wait a little,' says
England; 'there is trouble at Khartoum, and when I have set that all
right I shall be very glad to come out.' So they wait until it is all
over, and then again they say, 'Come out.' 'How can I come out,' says
England, 'when there are still raids and battles going on? If we were
to leave, Egypt would be run over.' 'But there are no raids,' says the
world. 'Oh, are there not?' says England, and then within a week sure
enough the papers are full of some new raid of Dervishes. We are not all
blind, Mister Headingly. We understand very well how such things can be
done. A few Bedouins, a little backsheesh, some blank cartridges, and,
behold--a raid!"
"Well, well," said the American, "I'm glad to know the rights of this
business, for it has often puzzled me. But what does England get out of
it?"
"She gets the country, monsieur."
"I see. You mean, for example, that there is a favourable tariff for
British goods?"
"No, monsieur; it is the same for all."
"Well, then, she gives the contracts to Britishers?"
"Precisely, monsieur."
"For example, the railroad that they are building right through the
country, the one that runs alongside the river, that would be a valuable
contract for the British?"
Monsieur Fardet was an honest man, if an imaginative one.
"It is a French company, monsieur, which holds the railway contract,"
said he.
The American was puzzled.
"They don't seem to get much for their trouble," said he. "Still, of
course, there must be some indirect pull somewhere. For example, Egypt
no doubt has to pay and keep all those
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