He paused a moment, and Hugh wondered if he was in some delirious dream. Here they were, taking coffee and cigarettes underneath the shadow of a modern hotel in the year A.D. 1912, and this great savant was talking to him about the spell that controlled the whole frog-nature in the universe. The gist, the moral of his discourse, was already perfectly clear. “That’s a good joke,” Hugh said. “You told your story with extraordinary gravity. And what you mean is that those two blue bits I hold in my hand control the whole ape-nature of the world? Bravo, Rankin! For a moment, you and your impressiveness almost made me take it all seriously. Lord! You do tell a story well! And what’s the secret name of the ape?” Rankin turned to him with the shake of an impressive forefinger. “My dear boy,” he said, “you should never be disrespectful towards the things you know nothing of. Never say a thing is moonshine till you know what you are talking about. I know, at this moment, exactly as much as you do about your ape-image, except that I can translate its inscription, which I will do for you. On the top half is written, ‘He, of whom this is, let him call on me thrice----’” Hugh interrupted. “That’s what Abdul read to me,” he said. “Of course. Abdul knows hieroglyphics. But on the lower half is what nobody but you and I know. ‘Let him call on me thrice,’ says the top half, and then there speaks what you picked up in the valley of the tombs, ‘and I, Tahu-met, obey the order of the Master.’” “Tahu-met?” asked Hugh. “Yes. Now in ten minutes I must be off to catch my train. What I have told you is all that is known about this particular affair by those who have studied folk-lore and magic, and Egyptology. If anything--if anything happens, do be kind enough to let me know. If you were not so abominably rich I would offer you what you liked for that little broken statue. But there’s the way of the world!” “Oh, it’s not for sale,” said Hugh gaily. “It’s too interesting to sell. But what am I to do next with it? Tahu-met? Shall I say Tahu-met three times?” Rankin leaned forward very hurriedly, and laid his fat hand on the young man’s knee. “No, for Heaven’s sake! Just keep it by you,” he said. “Be patient with it. See what happens. You might mend it, perhaps. Put a drop of gum-arabic on the break and make it whole. By the way, if it interests you at all, my niece Julia Draycott arrives here this evening, and will wait for me here till my return from Merawi. You met her in Cairo, I think.” Certainly this piece of news interested Hugh more than all the possibilities of apes and super-apes. He thrust the two pieces of Tahu-met carelessly into his pocket. “By Jove, is she really?” he said. “That’s splendid. She told me she might be coming up, but didn’t feel at all sure. Must you really be off? I shall come down to the station with you.”