A MOMENTOUS COMMUNICATION 311 You did not say whether we were to take the horses, master ; but I suppose you will do so ? ” “ Oh, I forgot to tell you that we are going to have camels ; they are to be put on board for us to-night. They are fast camels, and as the distance from the point where we shall land to the Atbara will not be more than seventy or eighty miles, we shall be able to do it in a day.” “ That will be very good, master; camels are much better than horses for the desert. I have got everything else ready.” After dinner was over, the party broke up quickly, as many of the officers had preparations to make. Gregory went off to the tent of the officer with whom he was best acquainted in the Soudanese regiment.

“ I thought that I would come and have a chat with you if you happened to be in.”

“ I shall be very glad, but I bar Fashoda; one is quite sick of the name.”

“No, it was not Fashoda that I was going to talk to you about ; I want to ask you something about England. I know really nothing about it, for I was born in Alexandria shortly after my parents came out from England. Is it easy for anyone who has been well educated, and who is a gentleman, to get employment there? I mean some sort of appointment, say, in India or the West Indies.”

“ Easy ! My dear Hilliard, the camel in the eye of a needle is a joke to it. If a fellow is eighteen and has had a firstrate education and a good private coach, that is, a tutor, he may pass through his examination either for the army, or the civil service, or the Indian service. There are about five hundred go up to each examination, and seventy or eighty at the outside get in; the other four hundred or so are chucked. Some examinations are for fellows under nineteen, others are open for a year or two longer. Suppose, finally, you donT get in ; that is to say, when you are two-and-twenty, your chance of getting any appointment whatever in the public service is at an end.”