“Ah, if we could, Sam!” said Frank, with a sigh.
“Never mind, sir; we’re not losing much time. But who’d ever think it! I used to fancy that foreign abroad would look foreign, but it don’t a bit. Here’s the sea and the sky looking just as it does off the Isle o’ Wight when you’re out o’ sight o’ land; and only when we saw the mountains with a morsel of snow on their tops did the land look different to at home. I suppose it will be a bit strange in Egypt, though, sir, won’t it?”
“Oh, yes. Wait a few hours longer,” said Frank, “and then you’ll see.”
Sam came to him the next night when they were settled in the European hotel, where the professor was welcomed as an old friend.
“I’ve put out all you’ll want, sir,” said the man. “Is there anything else I can do?”
“No, Sam; I’m just going to bed so as to have a good night’s rest ready for work to-morrow. Well, does this seem foreign?”
“Foreign, sir? Hullo! there’s another of ’em.”—Slap.—“Missed him again! Have they been at you yet, sir?”
“What, the mosquitoes? Yes. I just brushed one off.”
“They seem to fancy me, sir. I expected they’d be great big things, but they’re only just like our gnats at home.”
“Indeed! What about their bite!”