The Mena weekly star., 1913-04-10

CT sorry in another. Where to put the rug was a problem. He might carry 1t in his steamer-roll; it would be handler there than iE the bottom of his trunk, stored away iE the ships hold. Besides, his experience had taught him that steamer-rolls were only indifferently inspected. You will observe that the luster of his high ideals was already dimming. He req soned that inasmuch as he was bound to smuggle and lie, it might be well to plan something artistically. He wished now that he was going to spend Christ mas in Cairo; but it was too late to change his booking without serious loss of time and money.
 He had a light breakfast on the veranda of the Mena House, climbed up to the desert, bantered the donkey boys, amused himself by watching the descent of some German tourists who had climbed the big Pyramid before dawn to witness the sun rise, and threw pennies to the horde of blind beggars who instantly swarmed about him and demanded, in the name of Al lah, competence for the rest of their days. He finally escaped them by footing it down the incline to the ho- tel gardens, where his horse stood waiting.
 1t was long after nine when he slid from the saddle at the side entrance of the Semiramis. He was on his way to the bureau for his key, when an exquisitely gloved hand lightly touched his arm.
 Don't you remember me, Mr. Jones?" said voice of vocal honey.
 George did. In his confusion he dropped his pith-helmet, and in stoop- ing to pick it up, bumped into the DOT ter who had rushed to his aid Re member her! Would he ever forget her? He never thought of her with out dubbing himself an outrageous ass. He strengthened, his cheeks afire; blushing was another of those uncon- trollable asininities of his. It was really she, come out of past he had hoped to be eternally inresuscitant; the droll, the witty woman, to whom in one mad moment of liberality and Galahadism he had loaned without se- eurity one hundred and fifty pounds at the roulette tables in Monte Carlo; she, for whom he had always blushed when he recalled how easily she had mulcted him! And here she was, sc rene, lovely as ever, unchanged.
 My dear" said the stranger George couldn't recall by what name he had known her); my dear" to Fortune Chedsoye, who stood a little behind her, this is the gentleman I've often told you about You were at school at the time. 1 borrowed a hundred and fifty pounds of him at Monte Carlo. And what do you think? When l went to pay him back the next day, he was gone, without leaving the slightest clue to his whereabouts. Isn't that droll? And to think that I should meet him here!"
 That her name had slipped his memory, if indeed he had ever known it, was true; but one thing fingered incandescently in his min, aul that was, he had written her, following minutely her own specific directions and inclosing his bankers address in Paris, Naples and Cairo; and for many passings of moons he had opened his foreign mail eagerly and hopefully. But hope must have something to feed upon, and after a stru gle lasting two years, she rendered up he ghost |. It wasn't the loss of money that hurt: it was the finding of dross metal where he supposed there was naught but gold. Perhaps his later shyn;ss was due as much to this disillusion- ing incident as to his middle names.
 Isn't it droll, my dear?" the en- chantress repeated; and George grew redder and redder under the beautiful, grateful eyes. q must give him a draft this very morning"
 But Why, my dear Ma dame" stammered George. You must not l -"
 Fortune laughed. Somehow the qual- ity of that laughter pierced Georges confused brain as sometimes a shaft of sunlight rips into fog, sudden ly, stiletto-like. It was full fo malice.
 Continued in Next Issue)