When Amanda had recovered to a certain extent from her attack of nervous
prostration Egbert took her to the Nile Valley to recuperate. Change of
scene speedily brought about the desired recovery of health and mental
balance. The escapades of an adventurous otter in search of a variation
of diet were viewed in their proper light. Amanda's normally placid
temperament reasserted itself. Even a hurricane of shouted curses,
coming from her husband's dressing-room, in her husband's voice, but
hardly in his usual vocabulary, failed to disturb her serenity as she
made a leisurely toilet one evening in a Cairo hotel.

"What is the matter? What has happened?" she asked in amused curiosity.

"The little beast has thrown all my clean shirts into the bath! Wait
till I catch you, you little--"

"What little beast?" asked Amanda, suppressing a desire to laugh;
Egbert's language was so hopelessly inadequate to express his outraged
feelings.

"A little beast of a naked brown Nubian boy," spluttered Egbert.

And now Amanda is seriously ill.




THE BOAR-PIG


"There is a back way on to the lawn," said Mrs. Philidore Stossen to her