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NILE GREEN POINTS
A pearl in every oyster
GUM(BO) ARABIC PUREE
Siccative
CROCODILE HARD-BOILED EGGS
Sauce à la Queen Hat-shep-set
BREAST OF THE ONE-LEGGED PINK STORK
Stuffed with Baby Sausages
BROILED SCARABS ON BUTTERED TOAST
Sauce de la Pyramide
BRIE de BAGDAD
Foil cases, Crimean vintage '34
BENI-HASSAN DATES
ALLIGATOR PEARS
CAFE à la BWANA TUMBO
From the Wady Halfa bean
Wine
SAMIAN FIZZ
Music
By the "FLOWER BUDS OF CAIRO"
Decorations
By the BEGUM MACCUDDYLEEKI, period of Akbar the Great
The De Cossons lived in the suburbs, about two miles out on the road to the Pyramids, in a detached place without a street or a number, and quite hard to find when the sun had set. My hostess had prepared an elaborate map in two colors, red and blue, showing where I was to go and what I was to do and say after crossing the great steel bridge that spans the Nile. Armed with this formidable document, I went to the noble bandit who controls the carriage service in front of Shepheard's, and in a confidential whisper explained the map and the circumstances to him, at the same time slipping into his extended, yawning paw a wad of bakshish. I stipulated that I must have a driver who understood at least some English. He made a great show of grasping the intricacies of the map and the instructions that went with it, and presently, with a wild gleam in his eye, as if he had found a sure way to his "graft," he announced that he was ready and willing to take all responsibility. He had an official, high-backed chair on the sidewalk and asked me to use it till he returned. Then darting into the darkness, he quickly found a man (who looked like the First Murderer in Macbeth) on whom he could depend to rob me and divide the spoils with him. Dressed in his flowing oriental robes as Cairo's most abandoned criminal, he shook me warmly by the hand and whispered, as I stepped into the carriage:
"I have arranged everything."
I had a sufficient glimmering of what was going on to meekly pipe to him:
"Yes, I haven't the slightest doubt of it."
We started out at a brisk pace which soon relaxed into a funereal jog, and went on and on through narrow, squalid streets till we reached the Nile. Although I had given myself an extra hour for emergencies, I became impatient and asked him:
"But where is the big bridge with the bronze sphinxes on it that we are to cross?" He sadly wailed in reply:
"Ah, sahib, it ees so hard to find eet in the dark!"
In a burst of sarcastic anger, I shouted at him:
"Well, get off and light a match, and maybe you'll hit it by accident!" Assuming with an innocent look that I had spoken seriously, he took me at my word, jumped off his perch, lit a match and peered all round him. Then I got "real" angry, and told him De Cosson Bey kept a professional torture chamber, and that I would have him ground to sausage meat if he trifled with me another moment. Well knowing the impotence of my "hot air" blast, he simply smiled and took up his burthen of "finding" the bridge. This he soon accomplished, as it was about as easy to find as a saloon in the "Great White Way." The instructions accompanying the map stated that the Maison Antonion was on the left of the Pyramid Road after three crossroads had been passed. I began to look out for and count the roads, so when we had crossed two and were approaching a third I halted the Jehu and said: