He stopped thinking, and looked around cautiously. There were no protecting noises here. Infrequent footsteps, and occasionally a cough, were the only sounds invading the dull gloomy gallery. Coming up towards the sarcophagus by which he stood was a middle-aged portly man, leading two fair flaxen-haired children by the hand. The man was describing the various objects they passed. "Sometimes we don't let the living shift for themselves, we shift for them; and sometimes without putting the dead in the ground we leave those whom we shifted out of life to shift for themselves unburied." The man leading the little girls reached the sarcophagus. He stopped the children and, pointing to the coffin, said: "This was King Pharoah's favourite coffin. When he was quite a young man he contracted the habit of being buried in this coffin, and as he grew older he gave way more and more to this degrading habit. Stop, let me look closer. Upon my word and honour I have made a mistake. I see by one of the mortuary cards issued at the death, and found when they dug up this coffin out of the Nile, the body was that of one Ibis Cheops, who flourished a long time ago. When he was done flourishing they put him in here. Flourishing long ago was greatly admired; we solicitors are dead against it now. Let me see any of my copying clerks flourishing, and he may take down his hat and overcoat and go and enjoy life." "Is that in the catalogue, all about this stone hearse?" asked one of the children. "No, child." "Then how do you know, uncle? You told us you were never here before." "My dear child, you forget I am a solicitor; and once a man has anything to do with the Court of Chancery he is up to every mean dodge of human nature. It isn't to say that the muddle-headed ancient Egyptians could deceive or over-reach him in any way, but he is more than a match at cheating for the modern Greeks; and that's about as stiff a competitive examination in roguery as anyone can pass. I beg your pardon, sir; Mr. Grey, I think, of Daneford? Am I right?" CHAPTER IX. THE END OF THE HOLIDAY. Grey looked up with an uneasy start and a sudden pallor. "You do not remember me. My name is Barraclough. I am London representative of Mr. Evans, your Daneford solicitor." "Of course, of course. This is about the last place in the world I should think of meeting you, Mr. Barraclough." "I may say the same of you, Mr. Grey. Indeed few men--none, practically speaking--of our age come here, unless specialists of some kind." "I have never been here before."