244 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

our host began talking to me about the costliness of life in Cairo, and remarked — ** I have no doubt you thought my dinner an extravagant one for so small a company. But I had no power to diminish it. Everything which goes on in a household, where there is a harem, is known abroad.

Everybody knows, for instance, that I am giving a dinner to-day, and knows who is dining with me.

There are at least two score self-invited guests, who are dining here to-night, in another room. They are relatives, friends, retainers, old servants, slaves, and so forth, who not only consider that they have an absolute right to be feasted at my expense, whenever I give a dinner, but, what is more, are considered by the outside world to have such a right in accordance with our Oriental ideas." Hospitality is part of the Oriental code of morals, and the fact explains a good deal which puzzles a stranger * in Eastern countries. It is intelligible enough that Ismail, in the days when the purse of Fortunatus seemed to be at his disposal, and when money was of no account in his expenditure, should have kept open house for anybody who had any kind of claim upon him. In the East, a custom soon becomes a right. Upon his accession to the throne, Tewfik cut down what may be called the free list of Abdin from ten thousand to one thousand ; and similar reductions were made by him in all the other palaces and in all the various departments of the Court. Economy in the East is not accounted to any