Thomas, however, has no overwhelming love for “furriners—Dutchmen, dagoes, and such like.” It would be out of keeping with his profession. That was why Pia, after pointing out to me the least public entrance to the cavalry barracks, on this Sunday noon, strolled on down the street. The officers’ dinner was already steaming when I was welcomed by the six privates of that day’s mess squad. By the time it had been served, I was lending the cooks able assistance in disposing of the plentiful remnants, amid the stories and laughter of a red-coats’ messroom. Even the bulging pockets with which I departed were less cheering than the last bellow from the barrack’s kitchen:—“Drop in to mess any day, Yank, till you land something. No bloody need to let your belly cave in while there’s a khaki suit in Cairo.”
I was admitted to the library of the Reverend —— the following morning without so much as a hinted challenge from Maghmoód. The good rector was more distressed than surprised that I had not yet found work.
“The difficulty is right here,” he cried, as he made out a second Asile ticket. “No one will hire you in those rags, if you have a dozen trades. I must pick you up something that looks less disreputable. Come on Wednesday. I shall surely have something to offer.”
I fished out the note of the Greek cigarette maker and bore greetings from one European resident to another for two days more. On the third, I returned to the rectory and received a bundle of astonishing bulk.
“These things may not all fit you,” said the rector, “but it is all we have been able to collect.”
Red-eyed with hope, I hurried back to the Asile and opened the package. Just what I should have represented in the garments that came to view I have not yet concluded. On top was a pair of trousers, in excellent condition, but of that screaming pattern of unabashed checks in which our cartoonists are accustomed to garb bookmakers and Tammany politicians. In texture, they were just the thing—for Arctic explorers, and they resigned in despair some four inches above my Nazarene slippers. Next came a white shirt, with a mighty expanse of board-like bosom—and without a single button; then the low-cut vest of a dress suit, and, lastly, a minister’s long frock coat, with wide, silk-faced lapels.
The first shock over, I bore the treasure back to the rectory. But the good padre refused to unburden me. “Oh, I don’t want them around the house!” he protested, “If you can’t wear them, sell them.” Even the proprietor of “the union,” however, refused to come to my rescue. With much cajoling, I lured an unsophisticated newcomer at the Asile inside the vest and trousers, and intrusted the other garments to the safe-keeping of Cap Stevenson.
The endless stream of notes, having its source at the office of Cook and Son, flowed on unchecked. If my object had been merely to gain intimate acquaintance with the Cairenes of all classes, I could not have chosen a better method. No tourist, with his howling bodyguard of guides and dragomans, ever peeped into half the strange corners to which my wanderings led me. My command of Arabic, too, increased by leaps and bounds; for the necessity of giving expression of my innermost thoughts to the servant body of Cairo required an ever-increasing vocabulary.
The two-hundredth letter of introduction—if my count be not at fault—took me to that ultra-fashionable world across the Nile. The director of the Jockey Club read the latest epistle carefully, and, with sportsman-like fairness, gave me another. The delivery thereof required my presence in the great Gezireh Hotel. For once I was not even challenged by the army of servants; the very audacity of my entrance into those Elysian Fields left the astonished domestics standing in petrified rows behind me. The superintendent was most kind. He gave me, even without the asking, a letter of introduction! The curse of Cain on him who invented the written character! My entire Cairene experience had been bounded by this endless chain of notes through all the cycle of her cosmopolitan inhabitants.
The new missive carried me back to Shepherd’s Hotel, and for once I escaped employment by a hair’s breadth. The portly Swiss manager was inclined to overlook the shortcomings in my attire. He needed a cellar boy, could use another porter, or “you may do as a bell-boy,” he mused, with half-closed eyes, “if—”