60 WITH KITCHEHEE IN THE SOUDAN settled down at Cairo obtained a berth as interpreter, with the temporary rank of captain on Hicks Pasha’s staff, as he also spoke Arabic fluently. I can tell you no more about him than that, as I never saw him, though no doubt he came here with his wife when her account was opened. I was interested in her. I looked up the old books and found that two hundred pounds was paid into her account before he left.

I may say that she steadily increased that amount ever since, but a few years ago she had the sum then standing transferred to the boy’s name, telling me frankly at the time that she did so to save trouble in case anything happened to her.

I fancy from what she said that for the last year or two she had been going downhill. I had a chat with her the last time she came in. She told me that she had been consumptive, and that it was for the sake of her health they came out here.”

* “ That accounts for it, Murray. By the date, they were probably only married a year or so before they came out, and a man who loved a young wife and saw no other way of saving her would throw up any berth at home in order to give her the benefit of a warm climate. Still, it is a little curious that if he had only been out here a year or so before Hicks started, he should have learned Arabic sufficiently well to get a post as interpreter. I have been in the country about three years, and can get on fairly well with the natives in matters concerning my own work, but I certainly could not act as general interpreter.

“ Well, I am glad to have heard this, for you know the sort of men interpreters generally are. From the lad’s appearance and manner there is no shadow of doubt that his mother was a lady. I thought it more than probable that she had married beneath her and that her husband was of the ordinary interpreter class. How, from what you have said I see that it is probable he came of a much better family. Well, you may be sure that I shall do what I can for the lad.”

Gregory joined him as he left the bank. I think. Hill-