Nevertheless, impelled by curiosity, and relying on the promise made to him, he resumed his reading.
"You knew Miss Beatrice Poles," continued M. de Morin. "I pointed that female phenomenon out to you one day when we were smoking a cigar in the balcony at the club. She was, you will remember, plunging along the pavement right in front of you at a prodigious rate, for all the world like an express train under full steam. She banged through the various groups of people, however compact they were, with a dig in the ribs to the right, and a resolute shove to the left. She would inevitably have upset every obstacle in her path, had not the children taken to flight, the women squeezed themselves against the houses, and the men taken refuge in the gutter. As the rapidity of her movements prevented your distinguishing her features, I showed you her portrait, which was not overdone in the least particular, I assure you. Nothing was due to any invention—neither the leanness, nor the length, nor the arms, nor the hands, nor the feet, nor the enormous blue spectacles.
"Well, just picture to yourself that this elegant creature believes that Périères, Delange, and myself are in love, over head and ears in love with her. And we are unmerciful enough (one must amuse oneself on board ship) to humour her in that hallucination. I overwhelm her with compliments, and all kinds of delicate attractions; Delange is every moment bestowing on her the most amorous glances, and Périères sighs to such an extent that he might very well pass for a love-sick locomotive. The heart of Miss Beatrice Poles fluctuates between all three of us, and we shall let it do so—to fix it on one of us would be rather too dangerous.
"Apart from her delusion in believing herself young, lovely, and ardently beloved, she is an excellent woman, intelligent, even amusing where she herself is not concerned, an invaluable adviser, courageous, untiring, and exemplary in every way.
"I am sorry to say that I cannot give my servant Joseph such a good character. He is a regular stupid! Imagine his having, instead of putting Joseph on his baggage, which was sent on in advance to Egypt, labelled it Mohammed-Abd-el-Gazal, a fancy name of his own creation, which he has thought proper to adopt. What was the result? At Suez a real Mohammed, for the name is the commonest possible in these parts, claimed Joseph's baggage as if it belonged to him. With that Egyptian mixture of carelessness and knavery, of which we have already had frequently to complain, the baggage was handed over to this claimant, and no doubt by this time it is in the desert.
"Needless to say that it would have been absurd to pay any attention to the lamentations of Joseph, or to make any representations to the police. We called to mind the saying, now almost historical—'The day which witnesses, in Egypt, the recovery of a stolen pocket-handkerchief will see also the settlement of the Eastern Question.' But I am conscious, my dear friend, that I am not carrying out your instructions, for, instead of holding forth about Africa, as you wished, I have simply talked of ourselves, and that you do not care about. You will lose nothing by it. I yield the pen to Périères—he is a literary man—he is! He excels in description. You shall be satisfied."
"And high time, too," said M. de Pommerelle to himself. "Now I shall hear something about Egypt, and something worth hearing into the bargain. I know Périères—he is a remarkably descriptive writer—as good as Gautier."
He hastened to take the second sheet, and this is what he found there—
"Paris, departure, express, 7.15 p.m. Marseilles, arrival, 11.40 a.m. Grand Hôtel, Noailles—luggage. Walk round town. Tuesday left 9 a.m. steamer. Calm sea. Thursday, Naples, Pretty bay; Vesuvius not smoking. Friday, Port Said, very ugly. Left railway. Arrived—Cairo. Picturesque, but no Almehs. Arrange caravan. Kind regards."
"The wretch!" exclaimed M. de Pommerelle, indignantly, "and he calls himself a writer! And this is what literature has come to now-a-days! If you don't pay these gentlemen for their copy, they use the telegraph wire for a pen. And I compared this fellow Périères with that painter of the East, the great Gautier! I shall never forgive myself for it."