This excruciating crisis comes with every departure. The fear of missing the boat, the lurking suspicion that several articles have been left in lower drawers or under the sofa, the dread of overlooking some worthy menial who is entitled to baksheesh, the uneasy conviction that the bill contains several over-charges--all these combine to produce a mental condition about halfway between plain "rattles" and female hysteria. And then, to add to the horror of the situation, Mr. Peasley had disappeared. All hands were needed--one to boss the porters, another to round up the tippees, another to audit the charges for "extras," another to make a final search for razor strops and hot water bags (of which we had left a trail from Chicago to Cairo). Instead of attending to these really important duties we were loping madly about the hotel looking for Peasley. We asked one another why we had invited him to join the party. We called him all the names that we had invented on the trip to fit his unusual personality. One of these was a "flat-headed fush." I don't know what a "fush" is, but the more you study it and repeat it over to yourself, the more horrible becomes the full significance of the word. Also we called him a "swozzie," which means a chump who has gone on and on, exploring the furthermost regions of idiocy, until even his most daring companions are left far behind. We called Mr. Peasley a "wall-eyed spingo," the latter being a mullet that has lost all sense of shame. Ordinary abuse and profanity became weak and ineffective when pitted against words of this scathing nature. Reader, if you have a life-long friend and you feel reasonably sure that you never could quarrel with him or be out of patience with him or find fault with any of his small peculiarities, go on a long trip with him in foreign lands. You will be together so much of the time that finally each will begin to hate the sight of the other. There will come off days, fraught with petty annoyances, when each will have a fretful desire to hurl cameras and suit cases at his beloved playmate. Suppose your lifelong friend has some little eccentricity of manner or speech, some slight irregularity of behaviour at the table, or a perverted and stubborn conviction which reveals itself in every controversy. You may have overlooked this defect for years because you meet him only at intervals, but when you begin to camp with him you discover every one of his shining faults. And how they do get on your nerves! Next to matrimony, perhaps travelling together is the most severe test of compatibility. [Illustration: _You discover every one of his shining faults_]