"Oh, but I'd love to help," Kit pleaded, "and I did help before on the aborigines of Japan, didn't I? I even remember their names, the Ainos." "This is early Egyptian. Something you know nothing whatever about." "Just mummies?" inquired Kit. "Oh, Uncle Cassius, we girls back home made up a lovely little couplet about that when we were studying Egypt at high school. "'Heaven bless the royal mommies, And the jewels in their tummies.'" No answering gleam of amusement showed in the Dean's eyes. In fact, be regarded her, Kit thought, rather severely for this unseemly display of levity. "Of course," she added, hastily, "that was when I was very much younger than I am now. It was two years ago." The Dean coughed deprecatingly, and turned back to the pamphlets before him. "Remains have been discovered," he began in quite the tone he used in Assembly, "of the lost tribe of the Nemi. When the Greeks, my dear, obtained a foothold in Carthage and along the Mediterranean coast, the Nemi remained unconquered and retreated to the mountain fastnesses, west of the source of the Nile." "Well, I know all about that," Kit answered, encouragingly, perching herself on the arm of a chair, across from him. "Just see," and she counted off on her fingers, "Livingstone-Stanley,--Victoria Falls--Zambesi--and Kipling wrote all about the people in 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy.'" "No, no, no, not a bit like it!" the Dean exclaimed. "My dear child, learn to think in centuries and epochs. The long and short of it is, there have been some very wonderful remains of the Nemi recently discovered, and I have been honored by a commission from the Institute to write a complete summary of the results of the expedition and its historic significance." "Don't you wish you'd been there when they dug them up? That's what I'd love, the exploring part, don't you know. I should think it would be fearfully dry trying to make bones sit up and talk, when you are so far away from it all." "They are not sending me bones," replied the Dean with dignity, "but they are sending me the Amenotaph urn, and a sitting image of Annui. I believe with these two I shall be able to establish as a fact the survival of the Greek influence in ancient Egypt. My dear, you have no idea," he added, warmly, "how much this explains if it is true. There may be even some Phoenician data before I finish investigating." "Phoenicians," thought Kit, although she said nothing. "Yes, I do remember about them, too. Tin,--ancient Britain--and something about Carthage, or was that Queen Dido?" Then she said aloud very positively and earnestly: