"Yes, and we want hard, matter-of-fact stuff. Now look at me." "Well, I am looking at you," said Frank, half angrily. "What do I look like?" "Do you want the truth?" "Of course, my boy." "Well, you look like a Turk hard up in London, who has bought a second-hand suit of English clothes that don't fit him." The doctor threw himself back and roared with laughter, while the professor joined silently in the mirth and then sat wiping his eyes, not in the least offended. "Well done, Frank!" he said. "You've hit the bull's-eye, boy. That's exactly how I do look; and if I went to Cairo and put on a haik and burnoose, and a few rolls of muslin round this fez, speaking Arabic as I do, and a couple of the Soudan dialects, I could go anywhere with a camel unquestioned. While as for you, my dear boy, you couldn't go a mile. You'd be a Christian dog that every man would consider it his duty to kill." "I must risk that," said Frank stubbornly. "Must you?" said the professor. "What do you say, Bob?" "I say it would be madness," replied the doctor emphatically. "Stick--stark--staring madness," said the professor. "I, who have been out there for years, and who can be quite at home with the people, should have hard work to get through by the skin of my teeth." "And you would not get through, Frank," said the doctor decisively. "This business must be carried out wisely and well." "What would you do, then," said Frank impatiently. "Make application to the Foreign Office at once. Diplomacy must be set to work, and failing that, force." "Oh!" cried Frank, in a despairing tone; "why, it would take years to get that slow machine to work, and all that time wasted in correspondence and question and answer, while poor Hal is slaving away yonder in chains! Oh, Morris, what are you thinking about?" "Acting in the slower and surer way," replied the doctor firmly. "This can only be done with coolness. We know that Hal is a prisoner out yonder, and we must apply to Government to get him free." "Humph!" ejaculated the professor. "Hah!" cried Frank. "You don't agree with this, Landon?" "Of course not. Bob Morris is as clever a chap as any in London at cutting people to pieces and putting 'em together again; but over Egyptian matters he'd be like a baby. Mine is the plan." "To get your head cut off," growled the doctor. "Well, if I did," retorted the professor, "that would beat you. Clever as you are, old chap, you couldn't get that to grow again. Look here, Frank, you side with me. I'll go at once." "And take me with you?" "No, my boy, I--will--not," said the professor decisively. "Be sensible, and take what is really the best way. I am not bragging when I say that I am one of the most likely men living to carry this business through."