h--is there
annything, in me apparence, ar in me voice, ar in me accent, ar in me
manner, that would lade annybody to suppose I was an Oirishman?'

I succeeded, by good luck, in avoiding Elsie's eye. What on earth could
I answer? Then a happy thought struck me. 'Dr. Macloghlen,' I said, 'it
would not be the slightest use your trying to conceal it; for even if
nobody ever detected a faint Irish intonation in your words or
phrases--how could your eloquence fail to betray you for a countryman of
Sheridan and Burke and Grattan?'

He seized my hand with such warmth that I thought it best to hurry down
to my state-room at once, under cover of my compliment.

At Alexandria and Cairo we found him invaluable. He looked after our
luggage, which he gallantly rescued from the lean hands of fifteen Arab
porters, all eagerly struggling to gain possession of our effects; he
saw us safe into the train; and he never quitted us till he had safely
ensconced us in our rooms at Shepheard's. For himself, he said, with
subdued melancholy, 'twas to some cheaper hotel he must go; Shepheard's
wasn't for the likes of him; though if land in County Clare was wort'
what it ought to be, there wasn't a finer estate in all Oireland than
his fader's.

Our Mr. Elworthy was a modern proprietor, who knew how to do things on
the lordly scale. Having commissioned me to write this series of
articles, he intended them to be written in the first style of art, and
he had instructed me accordingly to hire one of Cook's little steam
dahabeeahs, where I could work at leisure. Dr. Macloghlen was in his
element arranging for the trip. 'Sure the only thing I mind,' he said,
'is--that I'll not be going wid ye.' I think he was half inclined to
invite himself; but there again I drew a line. I will not sell salt
fish; and I will not go up the Nile, unchaperoned, with a casual man
acquaintance.

He did the next best thing, however: he took a place in a sailing
dahabeeah; and as we steamed up slowly, stopping often on the way, to
give me time to write my articles, he managed to arrive almost always at
every town or ruin exactly when we did.

I will not describe the voyage. The Nile is the Nile. Just at first,
before we got used to it, we conscientiously looked up the name of every
village we passed on the bank in our Murray and our Baedeker. After a
couple of days' Niling, however, we found that formality quite
unnecessary. They were all the same village, under a num