matters. A Bill in Parliament promoted by the Railway Company in the
following year became necessary in connection with the loan, which after
our Report the Government granted, and I had to give evidence in regard
to it. In the same session I appeared also before two other
Parliamentary Committees, so again I had a busy time outside the ordinary
domestic duties pertaining to railway management.

On the first day of November, 1902, my good friend Walter Bailey and I
started on a visit to Egypt. It, like Constantinople and Spain and
Portugal, occupied more than the usual month's vacation, but as these
extra long excursions were taken only every two or three years, and as it
was never my habit to nibble at holidays by indulging in odd days or week-
ends, my conscience was clear, especially as my Chairman and Directors
cordially approved of my seeing a bit of the world, and readily granted
the necessary leave of absence. As for Bailey, he always declared this
Egyptian tour was the holiday of his life. To continue, we arrived in
Cairo, _via_ Trieste and Alexandria, on the 10th. There we were met by
Mr. Harrison, the general manager of Messrs. Thomas Cook and Son, and
their principal dragoman, _Selim_, whom he placed during our stay in
Cairo at our disposal. _Selim_ was a Syrian and the prince of dragomans;
a handsome man, of Oriental dignity and gravity, arrayed in wonderful
robes, which by contrast with our Occidental attire made Bailey and me
feel drab and commonplace. At Cairo we stayed for eight days at
Shepheard's Hotel, and under _Selim's_ guidance made good use of our
time. On the ninth day we began a delightful journey up the Nile. Mr.
Frank Cook had insisted upon our being the guests of his firm on their
tourist steamer _Amasis_.

My relations with Messrs. Thomas Cook and Son go back for many years, and
with the Midland of England, my _Alma Mater_, the firm is, perhaps, more
closely associated than with any other railway. It was on the Midland
system that, in 1841, its business began. In that year the founder of
the firm, Mr. Thomas Cook, arranged with the Midland the first public
excursion train on record. It ran from Leicester to Loughborough and
back at a fare of one shilling, and carried 570 passengers. This was the
first small beginning of that great tourist business which now encircles
the habitable globe. Mr. Thomas Cook was a Derbyshire man and was born
in 1808. My father knew him well, ofte