"You paint a lurid picture" I said, when he stopped for breath.
"I couldn't paint it lurider than it is. But you'll have to find out for yourself. It won't be so bad while you're a novelty. Don't say I haven't warned you. And oh, by the way, I've announced that you're to be presented to the passengers at dinner to-night, on coming in, before the soup is served."
"As a sort of hors d'oeuvre, I suppose," I murmured weakly.
Colonel Corkran stared, without a smile. "As the titled conductor of the Egypt tour," he explained to my dull intelligence, with a slight sneer. "So will you please be in the dining saloon just before the bugle blows the beasts in? I have to introduce you, in a short speech. It's all I can do, except say, God help you! But I don't see how He can. I suppose your friend Sir Marcus told you that you would be expected to deliver a lecture on Egypt, to-night at the dinner table? After you've finished your dinner, of course. I hope the cracking and crunching of nuts doesn't disturb you much? I confess I've found it getting on my nerves."
I was aghast. My mind jumped to the wild thought of eating soap, in order to froth at the mouth and simulate a fit. It seemed my only way of escape, and after that, the Deluge. But my rival was so revelling in the mental havoc he had wrought that I rallied, replying that, as Sir Marcus had not broken the news to me, I didn't see how it would be possible to deliver a lecture.
"Aren't you up on Egypt?" the colonel asked, pityingly. "Neither am I, though I've sweated over Baedeker with my head in wet towels, when I wanted to be at bridge. But I thought that was the excuse for engaging you? That, and your title, of course, which is going to make you popular. As fast as I fag up the names of those beastly Egyptian gods or kings and queens, they run out of my brains like water out of a sieve. Or if I do contrive to remember any, by chance, together with their dates, which is almost more than can be expected of the human intellect, why, I find that I pronounce 'em wrong; or they're spelled another way in the next book. But I suppose as you know Egypt, its d—d history comes natural as breathing."
How I wished it did! And how different was this new programme from the one outlined by Sir Marcus. Just to be genial, and flirt with the girls. "My recollections of Egypt are from some time ago," I admitted. "To give a lecture at half an hour's notice.——"
"In justice to yourself I'm afraid you'll have to," the colonel persisted. "It's been announced that you will give the lecture, and the Egypt lot are looking forward to it as the animals in a zoo look forward to their food. If they're defrauded, they'll think you a slacker, and that you're presuming on your title."
"I shouldn't like that!" my anguish racked out of me.
"I fancied you wouldn't. But what's to be done? Am I to announce, when I introduce you, that your knowledge of Egypt isn't equal to the strain?"