well? Merriton's giving me a send-off and no mistake. Gad! you chaps will
be envying me this time next week, I'll swear! Out on the briny for a
decently long trip; plenty of pretty women--on which I'm bankin' of
course"--he gave Merriton a sudden, searching look, "and not a care in
the world. And the white lights of Cairo starin' at me across the water.
Some picture, isn't it?"

"You may keep it!" said Tony West with a shudder. "When you've smelled
Cairo, Wynne, old boy, you'll come skulkin' home with your tail between
your legs. A 'rose by any other name would smell as sweet,' but
Cairo--parts of it mind you--well, Cairo's the stinkin'st rose I ever
put my nose into, that's all!"

"There are some things which offend the nostrils more than--odours!"
threw back Wynne with a black look in Nigel's direction, and with a
sort of slur in his voice that showed he had been drinking more than
was good for him that night. "I think I can endure the smells of Cairo
after--other things. Eh, Nigel?" He forced a laugh which was mirthless
and unpleasant, and Merriton, with a quick glance into his friends'
faces, saw that they too had seen. Wynne was in one of his "devil"
humours, and all the fun and joking and merriment in the world would
never get him out of it. His pity for the man suddenly died a natural
death. The very evident fact that Wynne had been drinking rather heavily
merely added a further distaste to it all. He wished heartily that he
had never ventured upon this act of unwanted friendliness and given a
dinner in his honour. Wynne was going to be the spectre at the feast, and
it looked like being a poor sort of show after all.

"Come, buck up, old chap!" broke out Tony West, the irrepressible. "Try
to look a little less like a soured lemon, if you can! Or we'll begin to
think that you've been and gone and done something you're sorry for, and
are trying to work it off on us instead."

"Hello, here's Doctor Johnson," as the venerable Bartholomew entered the
room. "How goes it to-night, sir? A fine night, what? Behold the king of
the feast, his serene and mighty--oh extremely mighty!--highness Prince
Dacre Wynne, world explorer and soon to be lord-high-sniffer of Cairo's
smells! Don't envy him the task, do you?"

He bowed with a flourish to the doctor who chuckled and his keen eyes,
fringed with snow-white lashes, danced. He wore a rather long, extremely
untidy beard, and his shirt-front as always was crumpled and worn.