Chapter 22

DEAD KINGS

The Swiss are the only people who have taken the trouble to master the
art of hotel-keeping. Consequently, in the things that really
matter--beds, baths, and victuals--they control Egypt; and since every
land always throws back to its aboriginal life (which is why the United
States delight in telling aged stories), any ancient Egyptian would at
once understand and join in with the life that roars through the
nickel-plumbed tourist-barracks on the river, where all the world
frolics in the sunshine. At first sight, the show lends itself to cheap
moralising, till one recalls that one only sees busy folk when they are
idle, and rich folk when they have made their money. A citizen of the
United States--his first trip abroad--pointed out a middle-aged
Anglo-Saxon who was relaxing after the manner of several school-boys.

'There's a sample!' said the Son of Hustle scornfully. 'Tell me, _he_
ever did anything in his life?' Unluckily he had pitched upon one who,
when he is in collar, reckons thirteen and a half hours a fairish day's
work.

Among this assembly were men and women burned to an even blue-black
tint--civilised people with bleached hair and sparkling eyes. They
explained themselves as 'diggers'--just diggers--and opened me a new
world. Granted that all Egypt is one big undertaker's emporium, what
could be more fascinating than to get Government leave to rummage in a
corner of it, to form a little company and spend the cold weather trying
to pay dividends in the shape of amethyst necklaces, lapis-lazuli
scarabs, pots of pure gold, and priceless bits of statuary? Or, if one
is rich, what better fun than to grub-stake an expedition on the
supposed site of a dead city and see what turns up? There was a big-game
hunter who had used most of the Continent, quite carried away by this
sport.

'I'm going to take shares in a city next year, and watch the digging
myself,' he said. 'It beats elephants to pieces. In _this_ game you're
digging up dead things and making them alive. Aren't you going to have a
flutter?'

He showed me a seductive little prospectus. Myself, I would sooner not
lay hands on a dead man's kit or equipment, especially when he has gone
to his grave in the belief that the trinkets guarantee salvation. Of
course, there is the other argument, put forward by sceptics, that the
Egyptian was a blatant self-advertiser, and that nothing would please
him more than the thought that he was being looked at and admired after
all these years. Still, one might rob some shrinking soul who didn't see
it in that light.

At the end of spring the diggers flock back out of the Desert and
exchange chaff and flews in the gorgeous verandahs. For example, A's
company has