ith and marrow of six considerable volumes in two and a
half hours.

"You have been better than your word," she said. "It would have taken
me two full days of really hard work to make the notes that you have
written down since we commenced. I don't know how to thank you."

"There's no need to. I've enjoyed myself and polished up my shorthand.
What is the next thing? We shall want some books for to-morrow, shan't
we?"

"Yes. I have made out a list, so if you will come with me to the
catalogue desk I will look up the numbers and ask you to write the
tickets."

The selection of a fresh batch of authorities occupied us for another
quarter of an hour, and then, having handed in the volumes that we had
squeezed dry, we took our way out of the reading-room.

"Which way shall we go?" she asked as we passed out of the gate, where
stood a massive policeman, like the guardian angel at the gate of
Paradise (only, thank Heaven! he bore no flaming sword forbidding
re-entry).

"We are going," I replied, "to Museum Street, where is a milkshop in
which one can get an excellent cup of tea."

She looked as if she would have demurred, but eventually followed
obediently, and we were soon settled side by side at the little
marble-topped table, retracing the ground we had covered in the
afternoon's work and discussing various points of interest over a joint
teapot.

"Have you been doing this sort of work long?" I asked, as she handed me
my second cup of tea.

"Professionally," she answered, "only about two years; since we broke
up our home, in fact. But long before that I used to come to the
Museum with my Uncle John--the one who disappeared, you know, in that
dreadfully mysterious way--and help him to look up references. We were
good friends, he and I."

"I suppose he was a very learned man?" I suggested.

"Yes, in a certain way; in the way of the better-class collector he was
very learned indeed. He knew the contents of every museum in the
world, in so far as they were connected with Egyptian antiquities, and
had studied them specimen by specimen. Consequently, as Egyptology is
largely a museum science, he was a learned Egyptologist. But his real
interest was in things rather than events. Of course, he knew a great
deal--a very great deal--about Egyptian history, but still he was,
before all, a collector."

"And what will happen to his collection if he is really dead?"

"The greater part of it goes to the Britis