Well, Adams--for Adams you must be--I am really delighted to see you, especially as you never answered some questions in my last letter as to where you got those First Dynasty scarabs, of which the genuineness, I may tell you, has been disputed by certain envious beasts.

Adams, my dear old fellow, welcome a thousand times"-- and he seized my hands and wrung them, adding, as his eye fell upon a ring I wore, "Why, what's that?
Something quite unusual.

But never mind; you shall tell me after dinner.

Let me introduce you to my friend, Captain Orme, a very decent scholar of Arabic, with a quite elementary knowledge of Egyptology." "_Mr._ Orme," interrupted the younger man, bowing to me.
"Oh, well, Mr.or Captain, whichever you like.

He means that he is not in the regular army, although he has been all through the Boer War, and wounded three times, once straight through the lungs.