ished in Cairo, and London papers, the "_Times_," the
"_Morning Post_." Isaacson bought two or three, vaguely. It was but
rarely he felt vague, but now, as he sipped his tea, his excitement was
linked with something else, that seemed misty and nebulous, yet not free
from a sort of enchantment. By the railing, before and beneath him, a
world of many of his dreams--his nargeeleh dreams--flowed by. The
abruptness of his decision to come--that made half the enchantment of
his coming, made a wonder of his arrival. The boy in him was alive
to-day, but with the boy there stood the dreamer.

The terrace, of course, was crowded. People of many nations sat behind
and on each side of Meyer Isaacson, walked up and down the broad flight
of steps that connected the terrace with the pavement, stared,
gesticulated, gossiped. There was a clatter of china. Girls in long
veils munched cakes, and, more delicately, ate ices tinted pink, pale
green, and almond colour. Elderly ladies sat low in basket chairs,
almost dehumanized by sight-seeing. Antiquarians argued and protested,
shaking their forefingers, browned by the sun that shines in the desert.
American business men, on holiday, smoked large cigars, and invited
friends from New York, Boston, Washington to dinner. European boys,
smartly dressed, full of life and gaiety, went eagerly up and down
excitedly retailing experiences. And perpetually carriages drove up, set
down, and departed, while a lean, beautifully clad Arab with grey hair
noted hours, prices, numbers, in a mysterious book.

But Meyer Isaacson all the time was watching the Easterns who passed and
repassed in the noisy street. He had not even glanced keenly once at the
crowd of travellers to see if there were any whom he knew, patients,
friends, enemies. His usual sharp consciousness of those about him was
for once completely in abeyance.

Presently, however, his attention was transferred from the street to the
terrace, carried thither, so it seemed to him, by a man who moved from
the one to the other. There passed in front of him slowly one of the
most perfectly built mail phaetons he had ever seen. It was very high
and large, but looked elegantly light, and it was drawn by a pair of
superb Russian horses, jet-black, full of fiery spirit, matched to a
hair, and with such grand action that it was an aesthetic pleasure to
look upon them moving.

Sitting alone in the front of the phaeton was the man who, almost
immediately,