«My New Year's Eve Among The Mummies»

"MY NEW YEAR'S EVE AMONG THE MUMMIES"

from Belgravia (1880-jan)

by Grant Allen (writing as J. Arbuthnot Wilson)

I have been a wanderer and a vagabond on the face of the earth for a good many
years now, and I have certainly had some odd adventures in my time; but I can
assure you, I never spent twenty-four queerer hours than those which I passed
some twelve months since in the great unopened Pyramid of Abu Yilla.

The way I got there was itself a very strange one. I had come to Egypt for a
winter tour with the Fitz-Simkinses, to whose daughter Editha I was at that
precise moment engaged. You will probably remember that old Fitz-Simkins
belonged originally to the wealthy firm of Simkinson and Stokoe, worshipful
vintners; but when the senior partner retired from the business and got his
knighthood, the College of Heralds opportunely discovered that his ancestors had
changed their fine old Norman name for its English equivalent some time about
the reign of King Richard I; and they immediately authorized the old gentleman
to resume the patronymic and the armorial bearings of his distinguished
forefathers. It's really quite astonishing how often these curious coincidences
crop up at the College of Heralds.

Of course it was a great catch for a landless and briefless barrister like
myself — dependent on a small fortune in South American securities, and my
precarious earnings as a writer of burlesque — to secure such a valuable
prospective property as Editha Fitz-Simkins. To be sure, the girl was undeniably
plain; but I have known plainer girls than she was, whom forty thousand pounds
converted into My Ladies: and if Editha hadn't really fallen over head and ears
in love with me, I suppose old Fitz-Simkins would never have consented to such a
match. As it was, however, we had flirted so openly and so desperately during
the Scarborough season, that it would have been difficult for Sir Peter to break
it off: and so I had come to Egypt on a tour of insurance to secure my prize,
following in the wake of my future mother-in-law, whose lungs were supposed to
require a genial climate though in my private opinion they were really as
creditable a pair of pulmonary appendages as ever drew breath.

Nevertheless, the course of true love did not run so smoothly as might have been
expected. Editha found me less ardent than a devoted squire should be; and on
the very last night of the old year she got up a regulation lovers' quarrel,
because I had sneaked away from the boat that afternoon under the guidance of
our dragoman, to witness the seductive performances of some fair Ghaw zi, the
dancing girls of a neighbouring town. How she found it out heaven only knows,
for I gave that rascal Dimitri five piastres to hold his tongue: but she did
find it out somehow, and chose to regard it as an offence of the first magnitude:
a mortal sin only to be expiated by three days of penance and humiliation.