254 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

impart, is the committal to memory of a string of verses from the Koran. He was at one time a Boab, or, what we should call a caretaker, at the warehouses of a Levantine merchant at Alexandria, drawing a salary of a pound or so a week. He gave up the situation on being drawn by the conscription for military service. He served in the army till he was a man of forty without acquiring any special distinction. Indeed, his professional record was not of the best. He got into a scrape for making a disturbance outside the palace of Abdin shortly after Said Pasha's death. He was subsequently dismissed on a charge of corruption from a post in the transport service which he held at Massouah during the war with Abyssinia, and was for some time in disgrace.

He then attended the school of the Mosque el Acbar at Cairo, and picked up a superficial smattering of Mahometan culture.

Corruption was a failing for which Ismail had no very stern disapproval, and after a brief interval of suspension, Arabi was allowed to resume service in the army. He forthwith became connected with a secret society — a common thing in I all Moslem lands. Ismail contrived to obtain infor-/ mation about this society, and on learning that it had considerable ramifications in the army, he forthwith determined to enlist its services in the j conspiracy he was then contemplating for the removal / of all the foreign officials employed in the administra-V tion of Egypt. He summoned the ringleaders of the (.