As soon as the Inspector was gone the Consul-General sent for his Secretary and asked what acceptances had been received of the invitations to the King's Dinner, whereupon the Secretary's face fell, and he replied that there had been many excuses.
Half the diplomats had pleaded calls from their own countries, and half the Pashas had protested with apologetic prayers that influenza or funerals in their families would compel them to decline. The Ministers had accepted as they needs must, but, with a few exceptions, the Ulema, after endless invocations to God and the Prophet, had, on various grounds, begged to be excused.
"And the exceptions, who are they?" asked the Consul-General.
"The Chancellor of El Azhar, his guest the Sheikh Omar Benani, the Grand Mufti, and——"
"Good! All goes well," said the Consul-General. "Make a list of the refusals and let me have it on the day of the dinner."
Before that day there was much to do, and on the day immediately preceding it the British Agency received a stream of visitors. The first to come by appointment was the English Adviser to the Ministry of Justice.
"I wish you," said the Consul-General, "to summon the new Special Tribunal to hold a court in Cairo at ten o'clock to-morrow night."
"Ten o'clock to-morrow night? Did your lordship say ten?" asked the Adviser.
"Don't I speak plainly?" replied the Consul-General, whereupon the look of bewilderment on the Adviser's face broke up into an expression of embarrassment, and his desire to ask further questions was crushed.
The next visitor to come by appointment was the British Adviser to the Minister of the Interior, the tall young Englishman on whose red hair the red fez sat so strangely.