88 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

requesting an immediate settlement of the overdraft.

It so happened that my informant had some business of a completely independent kind to transact with the bank in question. In the course of his transactions he learnt accidentally that the Khedive's account had never been overdrawn, that a substantial balance stood to his credit, and that no messenger had ever been sent by the bank with reference to the state of his account. The mystification, as my informant imagined, had been purposely arranged to impress him with the conviction that Ismail was in straits for money, and to thereby enable him to urge upon his creditors the expediency of accepting a reduction of their claims. Any number of similar stories have been told me as to the expedients to which Ismail resorted during the period when, to use a vulgar phrase, he was "fighting the devil" to raise money somehow or other for the wants of the day.

x During the six years which elapsed between the / opening of the Canal and the Cave Mission, Ismail's ( life was one long hand-to-hand struggle to meet the \ incessant calls upon his resources, and to do so, in as / far as possible, without injuring his financial credit. \ He fought the fight gallantly. In as far as I am / aware, he had no confidant, native or foreign, on Chom he placed absolute reliance ; yet, throughout it all, he never lost his courage or his cheerfulness.

The nearest approach to a confidant that he ever possessed was Ismail Pasha Sadyk, whom foreigners spoke of as the Minister of Finance, and whom