“This is the way in which you young fellows make ducks and drakes of all your chances!” he remarked, irascibly. “Here you are appointed to this Mission, which is a piece of luck for which most men would give their ears, and you are late the first time you have to meet your chief. In my young days such behaviour would have lost you your post, but there’s nothing that can be called discipline now.” “And how much happier the world is!” said Mabel, flippantly, stooping to arrange General North’s footstool more comfortably. “Now take care of yourself, uncle, and don’t think of waiting up for us. Come, Dick, we must really go.” “I say,” said Dick, as he followed her into the carriage, “I wish you would just cram me up a bit about this affair to-night. I know that we are to dine with the Egertons, and that the Kubbet-ul-Haj people will be there, but who the Egertons are, or why they should be mixed up with the Mission, I haven’t an idea.” “Dick, if I had such a bad memory as you, I would--study somebody’s system of mnemonics, I think. I have mentioned the Egertons in my letters again and again. Don’t you remember that I pointed out Mrs Egerton to you at the hospital yesterday--a pretty, rather worn-looking woman, with a black lace dress and pink roses in her bonnet?” “I apologise humbly for my forgetfulness. Forgive me, and instruct me.” “Well, don’t you remember that just after you first went out, I told you that Cecil Anstruther, one of our girls at the South Central, had taken high honours in the London B.A., and we were all so proud of her? She went out to Baghdad as governess to the Pasha’s little boy, when Sir Dugald Haigh was Resident there. The Haighs were very kind to her, and she became engaged to Lady Haigh’s cousin, who was surgeon at the Residency. He got into trouble in some way with the Turkish Government, and had to be sent home, and I believe they were separated for a long time. But they were married at last, and came home and settled down. Dr Egerton has a large property in Homeshire, and sits in Parliament for the eastern division.” “What, the member for Adullam?” cried Dick. “Yes, that’s what they call him, because he is said to be always in a minority of one. You know how the name was fixed upon him? Of course he was often called by it in private conversation, but one day Sir James Morrell, who is rather absent-minded, had to answer one of his questions in the absence of the Secretary for India, and in his flurry he alluded to ‘the honourable member for the Adullam division of Homeshire.’ The next week ‘Punch’ improved it into ‘the member for the Cave division of Adullamshire,’ and since then it has stuck. What do you know about Dr Egerton, Dick?” “Merely that he is one of the faddists who pose as authorities on India and the East generally.”