It is probable that no man on earth had a greater love for another than had George Bertram for Laurence Alsager. When he saw his old friend seated at the table, his heart leapt within him, and a great knot rose in his throat; but he was a thorough Englishman, so he mastered his feelings, and, as he gripped Laurence's outstretched hand, merely said, "How do?" "My dear old George," said Laurence heartily, "what an age since we met! How splendidly well you seem to be! A little stouter, perhaps, but not aged a day. Well, I've a thousand questions to ask, and a thousand things to tell you. What the deuce are you staring at?" "Beard!" said Mr. Bertram, who had never taken his eyes off Laurence's chin since he sat down opposite to him. "O, ah, yes!" said Laurence. "That's a relic of savage life which I shall get rid of in a few days; but I didn't like to have him off suddenly, on account of the change of climate. I suppose it shocks the old gentlemen here; but I can't help it. Well, now, you've got oceans of news to tell me. It's full a twelvemonth since I had letters from England; not a line since I left Jerusalem; and--ah, by Jove! I've never told you how I happened to come in such a hurry. It's horribly absurd and ridiculous, you know; I hadn't the least idea of returning for at least another year. But one sultry evening, far up the Nile, as I was lying back in my kandjia,--boat, you know,--being towed up by three naked chaps, pulling away like grim death, we met another kandjia coming down. In it were two unmistakable Englishmen; fellows in all-round collars and stiff wideawakes, with puggerees put on all the wrong way. They were chattering to each other; and I thought, under that burning sky and solemn stillness, and surrounded by all the memorials of the past, they would probably be quoting Herodotus, or Gardner Wilkinson, or, better than all, Eothen; but, just as they passed me, what do you think I heard one of them say to the other? 'No, no, Jack,' said he, 'you're wrong there: it was Buckstone that played Box!' He did, by Jove! Under the shadow of the Pyramids, and close by the Sphinx, and the vocal Memnon, and Cheops and Cephrenes, and all the rest of it, to hear of Buckstone and _Box and Cox!_ You can't tell the singular effect it had on me. I began to feel an awful longing for home; what the Germans call _Heimweh_ came upon me at once. I longed to get back once more, and see the clubs and the theatres, and all the old life, which I had fled from so willingly; and I ordered the Arabs to turn the boat round and get me back to Cairo as quickly as possible. When we got to Cairo, I went to Shepherd's, and found the house full of a lot of cadets and fellows going out; and one of them had a _Times_, and in it I saw the announcement of the new piece at the Parthenium; and, I don't know why,--I fixed upon that as a sort of date-mark, and I said, I'll be back in England to see that first night;' and the next day I started for Alexandria.