Dick and Brad were lounging in their room in the Shepherd’s Hotel, Cairo, when Professor Gunn came sauntering in, with an unusually springy step, humming a tune.
“Ah, ha!” he cried, striking a pose. “You two rascals have your heads together, I see. What are you planning? What new trouble are you hatching up? Can’t you rest easy for a brief time? I have enjoyed the last two weeks. Since our escape from Damascus, we have seen Alexandria, Cairo, the Pyramids, and so forth, and nothing unusual has happened. We have not once been in peril of losing our lives, and so now, I suppose, you are seeking to devise some method of getting us into danger. Desist—I bid you desist! Already my nerves have been shattered and my constitution ruined by what we have passed through. It was pretty bad in England. It was worse in Italy. It became still worse in Greece. We had to hasten out of Constantinople to escape with our heads. But the grand climax was reached in Syria. I tell you, boys, life was becoming too strenuous for a man of my years. A few more hairbreadth escapes would have brought about my utter collapse. I should have had heart failure. But you seemed to enjoy it. And now I suppose you are seeking to devise some means of getting us all into more trouble of the same sort. I order you to stop it!”
“It happened that we were just speaking of Miguel Bunol and his fate,” smiled Dick. “I can’t help feeling pity for the unfortunate fellow, but Brad insists that he received nothing worse than he deserved.”
“That’s what I do,” put in the Texan, rising. “Bunol was thoroughly bad and vicious. His crookedness was certain to get him hanged in the end, unless some equally severe punishment fell upon him.”
“His fate seems to be even worse than death on the gallows,” said Dick.
“Well, pard, have you forgotten that he first condemned you to that fate?”
“No, but——”
“Don’t try to make any excuses for that dog!” exploded the Texan. “He was the very limit when he attended school at Fardale. You know it, partner—you know about all the dirty, low-down things he did there. He was born a crook and a sneak. What was he doing when we ran across him in London?”
“Fleecing Dunbar Budthorne at cards.”
“Worse than that. He was ruining Budthorne by keeping him full of booze. He had found that Budthorne had a weakness for drink. But, in order to complete the unfortunate fellow’s destruction, Bunol had doped the man with a drug that made him crave liquor constantly. A cur that would do a thing like that deserves anything that comes to him.”