's all right."

"How nice Mike is!" she said simply.

"He's one of the best."

"Is he going to make Egyptology his profession?"

"I don't know--I don't think so. I'm afraid it's just another bit of
Mike's drifting."

"What a pity!" Margaret was practical.

"I tell him it's time lost--at his age he ought to be at the job he
means to succeed in."

"Isn't he taking this up in earnest? He seems to love the life."

"He does love the thing, but the detail of the work, with all its
exactitude and rules and regulations, bores him. You'll understand
better later on." Freddy opened a copy of the annual report of the
British School of Archaeology in Egypt and pointed to pages and pages
of written records, outline drawings, measurements and diagrams and
plans of tombs and excavations, even accurate copies of small pieces of
broken vases and plates and jars--almost everything which had been dug
up was carefully recorded; nothing seemed too small or incomplete to be
of value.

Margaret looked at it wonderingly. What was all the labour for? Some
day would she, too, understand the meaning of it and the use of such
scraps and atoms of ancient pottery? Freddy digging out beautiful
objects for the British Museum, statues and scarabs, wonderful jewels
and necklaces of mummy-beads, was what she had visualized, but of all
this she had never dreamed.

She put her finger on the outline drawing of a small fragment of
pottery with the tracing of a tiny sprig of some plant on it. Her eyes
said "What good can that be?"

Freddy read her meaning. "That small piece of pottery may have shown
that foreign vegetation was introduced into the district. It is a new
leaf, not met with before. It was probably sent for identification to
the Botanical Department of University College in London. Sometimes
little things like that give rise to heated discussions and theories.
Some excavators won't draw on their imagination--they will have nothing
but hard facts; others start a theory which sounds far-fetched--often
it comes out correct."

"Realistic and Imaginative Schools!"

"That's about it. The middle way is generally the soundest. The
excavator without imagination never gets very far, whereas the man who
is apt to let his imagination run wild gets on the wrong track and it's
hard to get him off; he overlooks things that won't fit in with his
theory."

"I had no idea archaeology involved all this--you're awfully clever,
old b