to tend them.

Coffee came, cigars followed, and the trooper made hay while the sun
shone.

Eventually a retreat was made to the ante-room. The haze of tobacco
smoke filled the place, and those who had a language in common spoke
cordially one to the other. At length a thrill ran instinctively, it
seemed, through the company, and all became severely courtly once more.
Chamberlains took up their accustomed places, people said formal things
to each other; obeisances were indulged in, hands shaken, courteous
remarks made, and thus the company gradually evaporated. Mac's turn
came. Before His Serene Highness he successfully accomplished his
sweeping earthward curves, thanked the Sultan for his kindness, but,
unaccustomed to the retrograde manner of leaving a room backwards, he
unfortunately found that the door was in the wrong place, and met the
wall with a resounding thwack. However, it was all in the game, even
though he did not think much of this method of quitting a room. So,
leaving by the normal mode, he was soon back in the old spring-cleaning
room, being salaamed, his hat and appurtenances being returned to him
with the usual Oriental ceremony.

Mac was not quite certain of the rest of the programme and was somewhat
surprised to find that the next act was the meeting at the station of
the New High Commissioner for Egypt. However, why not? It was all
very interesting and there was one of the Sultan's cars waiting. So,
waving a return salute to the Sudanese guard, as it presented arms, he
embarked upon this next little jaunt.

Away through the sun-baked Abdin Square again, back along the Sharia
and past the Ezbekieh, he was soon passing down the narrow lane between
throngs of garlic-scented humanity. At the great iron gates of the
Boulak Station, the car with the trooper, solitary and dignified
within, entered the avenue of Sphinx-like dragoons, well polished and
groomed. This led to a square lined with infantry. In the centre on
one side was the Royal door thrown wide, towards which stretched a
broad ribbon of crimson carpet. The car came to a standstill. Nothing
daunted, the trooper descended in solitary state. An unearthly silence
held the throng and to Mac the carpet seemed interminable, but at last
it ended, and, passing through the cavernous, gloomy opening, he was
soon swallowed up in a great crowd of mighty dignitaries. Acres of the
same crimson carpet covered the platform, its far limits bo