Sidney, on finding the travellers resided at the Hotel d’Orient, joined the table-d’hôte that day. The party consisted of four persons: Sidney; the pale-faced, squeaking-voiced Mr Lascelles Hamilton; the tall Caledonian, Mr Campbell; and a gentleman with a mellifluous voice, and an air which said, Look at me and listen. This gentleman was Mr Ringlady—the celebrated Mr Ringlady, a middle-aged lawyer, innocent of briefs, who had written some works on jurisprudence.
For a short time the Britons of the party looked at Sidney’s Egyptian dress with the supercilious disdain which enables Americans to recognise the inhabitants of the old country, while they are engaged in advertising their own nationality in earnest endeavours to keep their bodies in equilibrium on a single leg of their chairs. The voluble Mr Lascelles Hamilton, however, soon placed every body on a familiar footing. He lost no time in ascertaining Sidney’s name and country from the waiter, and then launched forth.
“I hear, Mr Sidney, you have been five months at Cairo; I am sure you have found it a delightful place. For my part, I have not been five hours; but I could-stay five years, for I have seen five wonders.”
“As I have not been so fortunate in my five months’ residence,” said Sidney, “you must tell me the wonders you have seen, before I give you my opinion of its delights.”
“First, then, the donkey on which I made my entry into the city of Saladin, ran away with me. No horse could ever do that, so think I entered Cairo riding on Old Nick! Second, I did knock down two ladies, each one as large as three donkeys and myself, and they did not scream. Third, my donkey did pitch me into the middle of the street, and nobody did laugh. Fourth, I did see Ibrahim Pasha pay his whole household in loaves of sugar—a year’s wages, all in loaves of sugar. And fifth, I do see four Englishmen sit down to a good dinner in Cairo in the month of April, without one of them being on his way to India.”
Mr Ringlady, who had been watching impatiently during this long speech for an opportunity of displaying the mellifluous voice of which he was so proud, in contrast to the harsh squeak and discordant accent of Mr Lascelles Hamilton, now gave a specimen of his professional turn of mind by remarking in his silvery tone, that he believed the fifth wonder was not quite a perfect miracle, for one of the party was a native of Scotland; and then added, glancing his eye obliquely from Mr Lascelles Hamilton to Sidney, “and perhaps all of us may not have been born in Great Britain.”
The little man saw the innuendo was directed against him and his accent; so, with the ease of a man of the world, he turned the tables on his assailant by replying in a very innocent tone—
“Yes, indeed, I did suppose you were an American. But it is no matter: we all count as Englishmen at Cairo. I was myself born in India, at Lahore, where my father was a general of cavalry.”
The lawyer had also hurt the feelings of the literary Scotsman, who fancied his accent was a pure stream of English undefiled. So that he had a wish for revenge, which Mr Ringlady afforded him an opportunity of gratifying by saying with great dignity,—
“My name is Ringlady; it is an old English name well known in our country. Mr Campbell, who is so profoundly acquainted with the history of Britain during the Norman period, must be well acquainted with it.”