Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/197

 said, "Salaam!" William would hurl his phrase into his teeth and pass on. Many reviled him for a dog of a, but he brushed aside the curses as he brushed aside the flies, which was ceaselessly during the day. Unwisely, he had begun the first day in Cairo by giving alms. About three hundred beggars from the tombs of the califs now loitered on the curb opposite his hotel, and they loved him as the ladies in "Olivette" loved the whale.

The night previous to the departure for Port Said, where they were to go aboard the Ajax, Camden invited William to go to the Théâtre des Nouveautes, where three or four good boxing-bouts were to be held. William threw up his hat. After ten thousand painted saints, and as many cathedrals and tombs, this prospective entertainment was manna in the desert.

But, with the exception of five sovereigns to meet the expenses of the evening, he wisely turned over his money to Ruth ; and, ironical as it may seem, this very caution was the cause of his downfall.

"Don't go prowling around after your boxing-match is over," she advised. "This is the last night, and if anything happened to you you would miss the boat."

"I'll never miss it, sister; take it from me."

Camden announced, as they entered the theater, that after the bouts William would have to shift for himself. "I'm off for a rubber or two of bridge at Shepheard's; so you'll have to guide