Longworth had only arrived that day for dinner, and the two friends were now exchanging their experience since they had parted some eight months before at the second cataract of the Nile.
“And so, Pracontal, you never got one of my letters?”
“Not one,—on my honor. Indeed, if it were not that I learned by a chance meeting with a party of English tourists at Cannes that they had met you at Cairo, I 'd have begun to suspect you had taken a plunge into the Nile, or into Mohammedom, for which latter you were showing some disposition, you remember, when we parted.”
“True enough; and if one was sure never to turn westward again, there are many things in favor of the turban. It is the most sublime conception of egotism possible to imagine.”
“Egotism is a mistake, mon cher,” said the other; “a man's own heart, make it as comfortable as he may, is too small an apartment to live in. I do not say this in any grand benevolent spirit. There 's no humbug of philanthropy in the opinion.”
“Of that I 'm fully assured,” said Longworth, with a gravity which made the other laugh.
“No,” continued he, still laughing. “I want a larger field, a wider hunting-ground for my diversion than my own nature.”
“A disciple, in fact, of your great model, Louis Napoleon. You incline to annexations. By the way, how fares it with your new projects? Have you seen the lawyer I gave you the letter to?”
“Yes. I stayed eight days in town to confer with him. I heard from him this very day.”
“Well, what says he?”