Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/144

126 would be personally conducted parties every morning at daybreak, to hear the performances. And what would that mean? More tourists, more donkeys, more shouting Arabs, more spouting dragomen, more scarab-sellers, more mummy-hunters, more carved Smiths from Birmingham, and sculptured Browns from Chicago on your pedestal. But perhaps you enjoy that sort of thing?"

To this unworthy taunt the silently-indignant Tama vouchsafed no reply.

"You don't answer? I suppose you really do enjoy it. You positively like being vulgarised."

The offensive word was too much for the mighty figure to endure.

"Vulgarised!" he cried in a voice of wrath that rumbled up the Valley of the Nile to the First Cataract like thunder among the hills. "Vulgarised! O, Father Time! As if anything on earth could vulgarise us! Are we the meaner or the newer or the less awful for the bees that hum around our heads and hide