her
and made my way back to the cab.

"To the Egyptian Museum," I cried to the driver, as I took my seat in
the vehicle, "and as quickly as you can go!"

The man whipped up his horse, and in less than ten minutes from the time
the butler closed the front door upon me at Medenham House I was
entering the stately portico of the world-famous Museum. For some years
I had been a constant visitor there, and as a result was well known to
the majority of the officials. I inquired from one, whom I met in the
vestibule, whether I should find Sir George in his office.

"I am not quite certain, sir," the man replied. "It's only just gone
half past ten, and unless there is something important doing, we don't
often see him much before a quarter to eleven. However, if you will be
kind enough, sir, to step this way, I'll very soon find out."

So saying he led me along the corridor, past huge monuments and blocks
of statuary, to a smaller passage on the extreme left of the building.
At the farther end of this was a door, upon which he knocked. No answer
rewarded him.

"I am very much afraid, sir, he has not arrived," remarked the man, "but
perhaps you will be good enough to step inside and take a seat. I feel
sure he won't be very long."

"In that case I think I will do so," I replied, and accordingly I was
ushered into what is perhaps the most characteristic office in London.
Having found the morning paper and with unconscious irony placed it
before me, the man withdrew, closing the door behind him.

I have said that the room in which I was now seated was characteristic
of the man who occupied it. Sir George Legrath is, as every one knows,
the most competent authority the world possesses at the present time on
the subject of ancient Egypt. He had graduated under my own poor father,
and, if only for this reason, we had always been the closest friends. It
follows as a natural sequence that the walls of the room should be
covered from ceiling to floor with paintings, engravings, specimens of
papyrus, and the various odds and ends accumulated in an Egyptologist's
career. He had also the reputation of being one of the best-dressed men
in London, and was at all times careful to a degree of his appearance.
This accounted for the velvet office-coat, a sleeve of which I could
just see peeping out from behind a curtain in the corner. Kindly of
heart and the possessor of a comfortable income, it is certain that but
few of those in need wh