t getting up until an hour after reveille,
and he was in no temper to be trifled with. A foolish non-com. had
taken the fatigue party to the wrong depot, where the O.C., opposed on
principle to a fine body of men wanting for work, saw that they were
not wasted.

After a morning's work, just as they were about to retire for lunch,
the peppery officer who had been foaming all the morning about his
missing men appeared and claimed them, and refused to dismiss them
before they had done his job as well. In the almost unbearable heat,
the party, rebellious and wrathful, had straggled off to the railway
station, where a heavy afternoon's work loomed before them. Saturday
afternoon too, and no dinner! Work! They didn't think! So they
retreated to a shady cafe, and, despite the expostulations of the
corporal, lunched upon the one satiating thing the place
contained--beer.

This did not fit them for an afternoon on a tropical day, so that, when
the zealous officer came at five to view the completed work, he found
only a collection of happy and sleepy warriors pleasantly reclining in
the shade of a tibbin stack. Awful threats fell unheeded upon them,
and the work remained undone. Further refreshed, they meandered
homewards, attempted vainly to maintain a comparatively straight line
while they were dismissed by an amused sergeant-major, and retired to
their lines to prepare for a Cairene evening.

Mac firmly resolved things had come to a pass when something dire had
to be done. He adjourned to the lines of another regiment, and
consulted, nay, intrigued, with his cobber. The result was that each
one's officer was approached by a trooper, who made clear the vital
necessity of his visiting the site of ancient Memphis and the Tombs of
Sakkara on the morrow. This was in the interests of his archaeological
researches, and he pleaded special leave. One officer only came up to
scratch, which was but a minor difficulty. Other means could be
resorted to for ensuring comparative safety. Military police and some
of the sergeants, especially if friends, were not averse to persuasion.

So it came to pass that eight o'clock the following morning found them
dodging military policemen and staff officers on a platform of the
Boulak station. They succeeded in ensconcing themselves in the
Alexandria express without much difficulty, the only incidents being
the upsetting of the equilibrium of a native railway official, a guard
or s