We had scarcely gotten into an intimate conversation when I realized that I must hurry back to my hotel where the Khedive’s carriage was to call for me shortly before eleven o’clock. Kitchener said that he wished to continue the conversation, and asked me if I would not bring Mrs. Morgenthau and my daughter to lunch with him two days later. I accepted the invitation. At eleven o’clock the Khedive’s carriage arrived to take me to the Palace for my official call. Policemen were posted at every cross street along the entire route, so as to give us an uninterrupted right of way and to give us proper recognition. I was delighted with my conference with the Khedive. He proved to be a thoroughly up-to-date, modern enterprising business man without any frills or assumption of airs. He met me at the door of the reception room, led me to a sofa, sat down next to me, and while sipping the inevitable Turkish coffee, talked to me for about half an hour about some of his investments in Turkey, and told me of his intention to occupy his summer residence on the Bosphorus at Yenikeny where I also had taken summer quarters. He then said that he regretted exceedingly that, before he had learned of my impending visit, he had made an appointment which would require him to leave town that afternoon, and he asked, in consequence, if he might not return my visit that same day. I told him that he reminded me of a Japanese student who, after paying a two-hour afternoon call on a lady in Boston, and receiving from her when he left a polite invitation to call again, walked around the block three times, and paid her a second visit. The Khedive laughed heartily, and though I assured him that I would gladly waive the formality which required him to return my visit, he insisted that he wished to continue the conversation, and would call later in the day. Consequently, that same afternoon, the Khedive returned my call at the Consular Agency, continuing the conversation as though there had been no interruption. He told me of the enormous cotton exports of Egypt valued at two hundred million dollars a year, and how his forefathers had developed the cotton industry in Egypt. As Kitchener had done, he asked numerous questions about the conditions in Turkey, and was very solicitous about the activities of the Government, and their relation to the diplomatic situation in Constantinople. It was a very curious experience to sit with one of the Oriental potentates on an absolutely equal footing, and to hear him talk about commercial and political affairs in perfectly good English, and in a business vernacular.