Lost trumpet

THE LOST TRUMPET 91
Cairo Station. I stood a little aside and considered
them. Three Jews—Egyptian Jews, not of the
Huebsch variety, with thin, Syrian faces and quick
eyes, and each a mistress hanging lymphatic upon
his arm. An English Army officer, his soldier-
servant panting dustily and with much sweat, baggage¬
laden, at his heels, following his master’s quick,
irritated stridings through the crowds with moist,
respectful eyes. How came it that the Anglo-Saxon,
the originator of so many things democratic, was
in the servant class of all nations the most abject
and easily cowed ? Now, a Russian servant of the
old days would have hailed his master: “O Alexander
Petrovitch,” or “O Anton Kyrilovitch,” and
declared himself dead-beat, and asked that master
to carry part of the baggage. And the master would
have cursed him and done so, in a manner matter-
of-fact. While of the new order in Russia
But I had to make concentration again on the
train passengers. Two American women with
husbands greatly be-spectacled and cigarred and
blase—mid-aged, mid-prosperous exports of the
Middle West. A chattering mob of fellaheen. A
Greek. Another Jew, with a canary on his wrist,
like a falcon on the wrist of an old-time hunter.
Two French boys, with collars absurdly starched,
like small, dyspeptic calves agape above white-
painted gates, the herdswoman a governess. . . .
Aslaug Simonssen.
I did not doubt her for a moment, nor she me.
With that name this could be no one but Aslaug