ian treasures. But he knew, too, that it had
become increasingly difficult to penetrate since Mrs. Athelstone had
been made the subject of some entertaining, but too imaginative, Sunday
specials. Still, now that he had properly magnified the difficulties
of the undertaking to Naylor, that the disgrace of defeat might be
discounted or the glory of achievement enhanced, he believed that he
knew a way to gain access to the hall and perhaps to manage a talk with
Mrs. Athelstone herself. His line of thought started him for Cambridge,
where he had a younger brother whom he was helping through Harvard.

As a result of this fraternal visit, Simpkins minor cut the classes of
Professor Alexander Blackburn, the eminent archaeologist, for the next
week, and went to his other lectures by back streets. For the kindly
professor had given him a letter, introducing him to Mrs. Athelstone as
a worthy young student with a laudable thirst for that greater knowledge
of Egyptian archaeology, ethnology and epigraphy which was to be gained
by an inspection of her collection. And it was the possession of this
letter which influenced Simpkins major to take the smoking car and to
sit up all night, conning an instructive volume on Ancient Egypt,
thereby acquiring much curious information, and diverting two dollars of
his expense money to the pocket in which he kept his individual cash
balance.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

II

For five minutes the decorous silence of the anteroom was unbroken.
Then the door of the inner office swung open and closed behind a
dejected-looking young man, and the boy, without so much as asking
for a card, preceded the secretly-elated Simpkins into the hall.

They had stepped from the present into the past. Simpkins found himself
looking between a double row of pillars, covered with hieroglyphics in
red and black, to an altar of polished black basalt, guarded on either
side by stone sphinxes. Behind it, straight from the lofty ceiling, fell
a veil of black velvet, embroidered with golden scarabaei, and fringed
with violet. The approach, a hundred paces or more, was guarded by
twoscore mummies in black cases, standing upright along the pillars.

"Watcher gawkin' at?" demanded the youth, grinning up at the staring
Simpkins. "Lose dat farmer-boy face or it's back to de ole homestead
for youse. Her royal nibs ain't lookin' for no good milker."

"Oh, I'm just rubbering to see where the goat's kept,