224 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

your going down with the Ambassador. He is the representative of a reigning Sovereign. I represent nobody but myself." The anecdote may appear trivial, but it illustrates the charm of manner which caused so many of us, who held the strongest opinion as to Ismail's public record, to have a sort of personal regard for him, which, logically, we might have found it hard to justify. His failings, his faults, his sins, were grave enough in all conscience; but still it was impossible — I, for one, at any rate, found it so — to ignore his imperturbable good humour, his manifest desire to make himself pleasant to all who came within his circle. He liked people to like him, and this, after all, is something to say for a ruler who, for his own misfortune and that of his people, had been for years an absolute master, whose will was law.

The end of his life ought, if there is such a thing as abstract justice, to expiate some of his offences.

In 1887 he was invited by the Sultan to take up his abode at Constantinople. All his friends advised him most strongly to decline the invitation. But his mind was made up. The alleged cause of his acceptance was the difficulty of residing in any Christian State together with his harem. The real cause consisted, I am convinced, in the hopes held out to him by the Ottoman Government, that if he placed himself under their protection, they would use their efforts to secure his return to Egypt. From the moment, however, that he set foot on Turkish soil, he found himself, in