matter which has led to my presence here to-night. My
preceding remarks were a necessary foreword. I come to the year 1902,
when I was established in Cairo, whither I had conveyed the results of
the labor of many years and where I had taken up my quarters in a
large native house not twenty yards from the Bab-es-Zuwela."

Gatton stirred restlessly in his chair and my own curiosity knew no
bounds.

"My inquiries at this time had nearly exhausted my always slender
financial resources, and the proceeds of a small practice which I
succeeded in establishing (exclusively amongst the extensive
half-caste colony resident in this neighborhood) proved a welcome
addition to my income. It was due to the fact that at this time I was
an active practitioner that I came in touch with the most perfect and
notable example of a _psycho-hybrid_ which I had ever encountered,
indeed which, so far as I am aware, has ever appeared."

He paused again, as if overcome with faintness, and in anticipation of
what was to come I could scarcely contain myself, when:

"At this time," he resumed, in a yet lower voice, "and indeed until
quite recently, there were but few reliable European medical men in
Cairo, and during the summer of 1902 an outbreak of cholera
temporarily depleted their already scanty ranks. It happened then that
one night, whilst I sat in the huge, lofty room, once the principal
harem apartment of the house, which I had appropriated as a study,
Cassim, my Nubian servant, communicated to me (by means of a
sign-language which I had taught him) some startling news. My
immediate presence was desired at the residence of Sir Burnham
Coverly, then newly appointed to a government office, and who with his
wife had only arrived in the country some few months earlier.

"I thought I knew the nature of the services required of me, but my
employment by this typical English aristocrat, hide-bound with caste
traditions as he could not fail to be, since he had spent five years
of his official life in India, surprised me very greatly. I was later
to learn that the services of no other medical man (or of no medical
man so highly qualified as myself) were available; but even had I
known this at the time I should have put my pride in my pocket, and
for this reason:

"I had learned from a native acquaintance of a certain occurrence
which had taken place on the very day of the baronet's arrival in
Egypt; and it led me to look for a particular manifest