At twilight in the summer[…]the mice come out. They[…]eat the luncheon crumbs. Mr. Checkley, for instance, always brought his dinner in a paper parcel in his coat-tail pocket, and ate it when so disposed, sprinkling crumbs lavishly[…]on the floor.

Then the warrior appeared, in a manner that was dead serious as a heart attack wearing a baseball cap. Then came the sidekick, a jet black madman dancing, and almost cooning out of the shadows that cancelled him.

I've no idea if she guessed what I was intending to do. I don't know why I was so reluctant to talk about it, even to her. Maybe I was afraid that verbalising my intentions would jinx it in some way.

The famous egyptologist, Prof. G. Maspero, is now having the third work of his Egyptian trilogy translated from the French by M. L. McClure