o it
differently. I could spend hours in a gondola if the blamed things were
not more expensive by the trip."

It was there that he was suddenly recalled to his duty from dreams of
moonlight on the water by a cablegram which demanded $324.00 before it
could be read. It contained word for word the parable of the ten
talents and ended with the simple word "Jones."

CHAPTER XXIII

AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE

The summer is scarcely a good time to visit Egypt, but Monty and his
guests had a desire to see even a little of the northern coast of
Africa. It was decided, therefore, that after Athens, the "Flitter"
should go south. The yacht had met them at Naples after the automobile
procession,--a kind of triumphal progress,--was disbanded in Florence,
and they had taken a hurried survey of Rome. By the middle of July the
party was leaving the heat of Egypt and finding it not half bad. New
York was not more than a month away as Brewster reckoned time and
distance, and there was still too much money in the treasury. As
September drew nearer he got into the habit of frequently forgetting
Swearengen Jones until it was too late to retrace his steps. He was
coming to the "death struggle," as he termed it, and there was
something rather terrorizing in the fear that "the million might die
hard." And so these last days and nights were glorious ones, if one
could have looked at them with unbiased, untroubled eyes. But every
member of his party was praying for the day when the "Flitter" would be
well into the broad Atlantic and the worst over. At Alexandria Brewster
had letters to some Englishmen, and in the few entertainments that he
gave succeeded once again in fairly outdoing Aladdin.

A sheik from the interior was a guest at one of Monty's entertainments.
He was a burly, hot-blooded fellow, with a densely-populated harem, and
he had been invited more as a curiosity than as one to be honored. As
he came aboard the "Flitter," Monty believed the invitation was more
than justified. Mohammed was superb, and the women of the party made so
much of him that it was small wonder that his head was turned. He fell
desperately in love with Peggy Gray on sight, and with all the
composure of a potentate who had never been crossed he sent for
Brewster the next day and told him to "send her around" and he would
marry her. Monty's blood boiled furiously for a minute or two, but he
was quick to see the wisdom of treating the proposition diplomat