Lister.

"Is that you, Miss Champion?" said Pauline. "Well now, have you heard
of Mr. Dalmain? He has had to go to town unexpectedly, on the 1.15
train; and aunt has dropped her false teeth on her marble wash-stand
and must get to the dentist right away. So we go to town on the 2.30.
It's an uncertain world. It complicates one's plans, when they have to
depend on other people's teeth. But I would sooner break false teeth
than true hearts, any day. One can get the former mended, but I guess
no one can mend the latter. We are lunching early in our rooms; so I
wish you good-by, Miss Champion."

CHAPTER XII

THE DOCTOR'S PRESCRIPTION

The Honourable Jane Champion stood on the summit of the Great Pyramid
and looked around her. The four exhausted Arabs whose exertions,
combined with her own activity, had placed her there, dropped in the
picturesque attitudes into which an Arab falls by nature. They had
hoisted the Honourable Jane's eleven stone ten from the bottom to the
top in record time, and now lay around, proud of their achievement and
sure of their "backsheesh."

The whole thing had gone as if by clock-work. Two mahogany-coloured,
finely proportioned fellows, in scanty white garments, sprang with the
ease of antelopes to the top of a high step, turning to reach down
eagerly and seize Jane's upstretched hands. One remained behind, unseen
but indispensable, to lend timely aid at exactly the right moment. Then
came the apparently impossible task for Jane, of placing the sole of
her foot on the edge of a stone four feet above the one upon which she
was standing. It seemed rather like stepping up on to the drawing-room
mantelpiece. But encouraged by cries of "Eiwa! Eiwa!" she did it; when
instantly a voice behind said, "Tyeb!" two voices above shouted,
"Keteer!" the grip on her hands tightened, the Arab behind hoisted, and
Jane had stepped up, with an ease which surprised herself. As a matter
of fact, under those circumstances the impossible thing would have been
not to have stepped up.

Arab number four was water-carrier, and offered water from a gourd at
intervals; and once, when Jane had to cry halt for a few minutes'
breathing space, Schehati, handsomest of all, and leader of the
enterprise, offered to recite English Shakespeare-poetry. This proved
to be:

"Jack-an-Jill
Went uppy hill,
To fetchy paily water;
Jack fell down-an
Broke his crown-an
Jill came tumbling after."