Presently he returned. "I have a large catalogue to make out, which requires a knowledge of two or three languages. It will take three weeks or more to compile. If you like to undertake it, it will be a means of keeping you until you can find something better. We are not quite ready to start yet, but present yourself here the day after to-morrow, and you can begin your duties. How will that suit you?"
George gratefully accepted the offer, and left the shop delighted with his good fortune.
As he hurried along towards his quarters, it seemed to him that he was walking on air. His wildest anticipations had been more than realized. He had never for one moment expected that his first effort could have possibly met with such success, and he wanted to laugh aloud. He knew nothing of catalogue-making, but no doubt, he thought, it required but a little common-sense, and he felt he possessed that. At any rate he had undertaken it, and would go through with it now.
On the appointed day George started his new task, and found it not only easy but congenial work. The many books in various languages attracted him further than their covers and titles, and he filled up all the odd and spare moments he could afford in studying many of them, particularly the Arabic ones. And so the days passed. In the evenings he wandered about the neighbourhood as far as Boulak, admiring the palaces of the Khedives, and watching the steamboats and dahabîehs arrive and depart for the Nile. At times he would stray further afield to the great Pyramids, and stand motionless with astonishment before their towering stone wonders. His first sight of the sun setting behind them, casting a golden-reddish glow all around, amazed and allured him so much that he made frequent visits to the same spot at the same hours.
But he wanted to see as much as he could during the next few days, for he could not tell what would happen after his catalogue was done. He therefore visited the regions of every-day commercial life; the carpet bazaars decorated with their Oriental manufactures of all colours; the Khan Khalili, wherein the Persian, Spanish, Jewish, and Turkish merchants offer for sale their stock of jewels, silks, brass-work, etc.; the silver bazaar, where the finest filigree work is pressed upon prospective buyers. He brushed shoulders with shoe-sellers, the pistachio-sellers, and the water-carriers, who assure all who choose to listen that theirs is "Water sweet as honey! Water from the spring!" and in a commanding voice invite you to "Drink, O faithful! The wind is hot, and the way long!" but not without the necessary piastres first.
During these few days George saw and learnt a good deal of Cairo, but he had not learnt quite sufficient of its manners and streets.
The day came when the catalogue business was finished, and his employer promised to find him some other occupation on the morrow. George was quite pleased with himself, and started off for another of his rambles.
For a while he was quite heedless of the direction he was taking, busily building castles in the air as fast as his thoughts would allow him; but he was brought to earth with a run as the fact dawned upon him suddenly that for the first time he had lost his way. He was in the densest part of the native quarter.
The evening was rapidly closing in, and he looked about for some one to direct him. Not a European face could he see anywhere. The street in which he found himself was filled with a chattering mob of natives, the houses formed one continuous line of small, poky stalls, where evil-looking Egyptians, Turks, and Arabs were offering their worthless stock for sale.
Hurrying along, he wandered through a labyrinth of streets, all more or less similar, until he became so confused that in despair he appealed to one of the native vendors.