tion of
old friend Fairley, the only one who knew the whole truth--they founded
three great schools for Quaker children. They were wont to say to each
other, as the hurrying world made inroads on the strict Quaker life
to which they had returned: "All the world's mad but thee and me, and
thee's a bit mad."

THE MAN AT THE WHEEL

Wyndham Bimbashi's career in Egypt had been a series of mistakes. In the
first place he was opinionated, in the second place he never seemed to
have any luck; and, worst of all, he had a little habit of doing grave
things on his own lightsome responsibility. This last quality was
natural to him, but he added to it a supreme contempt for the native
mind and an unhealthy scorn of the native official. He had not that rare
quality, constantly found among his fellow-countrymen, of working the
native up through his own medium, as it were, through his own customs
and predispositions, to the soundness of Western methods of government.
Therefore, in due time he made some dangerous mistakes. By virtue of
certain high-handed actions he was the cause of several riots in native
villages, and he had himself been attacked at more than one village
as he rode between the fields of sugar-cane. On these occasions he had
behaved very well--certainly no one could possibly doubt his bravery;
but that was a small offset to the fact that his want of tact and his
overbearing manner had been the means of turning a certain tribe of
Arabs loose upon the country, raiding and killing.

But he could not, or would not, see his own vain stupidity. The climax
came in a foolish sortie against the Arab tribe he had offended. In that
unauthorised melee, in covert disobedience to a general order not
to attack, unless at advantage--for the Gippies under him were raw
levies--his troop was diminished by half; and, cut off from the Nile by
a flank movement of the Arabs, he was obliged to retreat and take refuge
in the well-fortified and walled house which had previously been a
Coptic monastery.

Here, at last, the truth came home to Wyndham bimbashi. He realised that
though in his six years' residence in the land he had acquired a command
of Arabic equal to that of others who had been in the country twice
that time, he had acquired little else. He awoke to the fact that in his
cock-sure schemes for the civil and military life of Egypt there was
not one element of sound sense; that he had been all along an
egregious failure. I