"that'll just about pay Margaret's dowry!" His splendid oratory extorted its just homage from the gathered party, while my fiancee and I waved from under our tipping toppers, and I squeezed Margaret's hand to
keep her awake, as the excitement had not surprisingly exhausted her in her fragile health. She smiled through heavy lids and murmured, "This is really swell, isn't it, love? All this fiesta. I could do with a siesta." Even in her fatigue, she was celestial, grateful to her father and me. The crowd cheered our nuptials and the success of my mission, perhaps not precisely in that order, as CCF had muscled several of the party into be• coming partners in Hand-of-Atum Explorations, of which he is Presi• dent and I am a shareholding Technical Consultant. The band started
up again with a peculiar fox-trot, presumably appropriate to Egyptian exploration and an age-old piece of zoological trivia:
If you prefer not to hump on just one bump Then you 'd best be wary of the dromedary.
But if you'd like to jump and srump and pump Between two big lumps —
"Not so fast, boys," interrupts CCF, and the music stumbles to silence one instrument at a time, a sizzling cymbal the last to get the message, "because we've got a little surprise," and CCF calls up Kendall and Hilly Mitchell, Beacon Hill jollies I had met at an investors' meeting and then again when, at CCF's request, I had gone for some very dis• creet cocktails with Kendall at his exceedingly discreet club, •where he
interviewed me about my background and Egypt with alarming tenac• ity and secrecy, an interrogation I simply could not understand until this very moment, when Hilly laughingly tossed her scarcely sheathed hips and bumped the Negro from the piano bench, and Kendall loos• ened his tie and struck a boulevardier pose. While Margaret struggled to prop her heavy eyelids, I listened to our musical tribute, composed by these two party personalities, delirious with cash and inherited real es• tate, undeterrable donors of personalised song lyrics for gala events on Beacon Hill and in Back Bay. I transcribe here from the drink-ringed dedication copy of the lyrics I was subsequently presented ("To Ral- phie! Here's hopin'ya dig up a 'mummy' fer yer new 'daddy'! Lotsa good good luck, from your Yank pals H & K Mitchell!"). Kendall war• bled while Hilly jangled up and down the keyboard with clumsy fists:
Pushed early down from Oxford, With his trouders 'round his ankles, Came young R. M. Trilipush
And he'll admit the mem'ry rankles.
Well, off he went to Egypt
Where he was meant to fight the Kaiser, But after several years at war
He left the Kaiser none the wiser.
Instead he sweated in the Orient Upon his knees and hands. (Now, try not to be prurient,
I mean that he was digging in the sands!)
He dug and dug with another limey Until, as Boche guns assailed them, Those two Brits, they shouted "Blimey!" For their spades had sure not failed them.
["Unlike ours!" I recall CCF bellowing at this point, referring to, I believe, some waiters who were slow in fetching him another drink. "Oh, Daddy, really," my Margaret gently chided him, her knees pulled up under her chin.]
What they found that day All of us surely know
It keeps our wives awake at night
And makes our (ahem!) imaginations grow.
They found terrific hieroglyphic,*, The writings of some Pharaoh,
Which Pusby published in plain English, And thrilled the market to its marrow.
[At his club, I had corrected Mitchell several times, explaining with increasing frustration that hieroglyphic was an adjective and hieroglyph the noun, and that his use of the term Pharaoh for an Egyptian king prior to the XVIIIth or XlXth Dynasty was thoroughly anachronistic and, frankly, grated on my ear. The Xlllth-Dynasty Atum-hadu would have been referred to as "King" not by the Hebraicised metonymical device per-o. I repeated this easily a dozen times as silver
keep her awake, as the excitement had not surprisingly exhausted her in her fragile health. She smiled through heavy lids and murmured, "This is really swell, isn't it, love? All this fiesta. I could do with a siesta." Even in her fatigue, she was celestial, grateful to her father and me. The crowd cheered our nuptials and the success of my mission, perhaps not precisely in that order, as CCF had muscled several of the party into be• coming partners in Hand-of-Atum Explorations, of which he is Presi• dent and I am a shareholding Technical Consultant. The band started
up again with a peculiar fox-trot, presumably appropriate to Egyptian exploration and an age-old piece of zoological trivia:
If you prefer not to hump on just one bump Then you 'd best be wary of the dromedary.
But if you'd like to jump and srump and pump Between two big lumps —
"Not so fast, boys," interrupts CCF, and the music stumbles to silence one instrument at a time, a sizzling cymbal the last to get the message, "because we've got a little surprise," and CCF calls up Kendall and Hilly Mitchell, Beacon Hill jollies I had met at an investors' meeting and then again when, at CCF's request, I had gone for some very dis• creet cocktails with Kendall at his exceedingly discreet club, •where he
interviewed me about my background and Egypt with alarming tenac• ity and secrecy, an interrogation I simply could not understand until this very moment, when Hilly laughingly tossed her scarcely sheathed hips and bumped the Negro from the piano bench, and Kendall loos• ened his tie and struck a boulevardier pose. While Margaret struggled to prop her heavy eyelids, I listened to our musical tribute, composed by these two party personalities, delirious with cash and inherited real es• tate, undeterrable donors of personalised song lyrics for gala events on Beacon Hill and in Back Bay. I transcribe here from the drink-ringed dedication copy of the lyrics I was subsequently presented ("To Ral- phie! Here's hopin'ya dig up a 'mummy' fer yer new 'daddy'! Lotsa good good luck, from your Yank pals H & K Mitchell!"). Kendall war• bled while Hilly jangled up and down the keyboard with clumsy fists:
Pushed early down from Oxford, With his trouders 'round his ankles, Came young R. M. Trilipush
And he'll admit the mem'ry rankles.
Well, off he went to Egypt
Where he was meant to fight the Kaiser, But after several years at war
He left the Kaiser none the wiser.
Instead he sweated in the Orient Upon his knees and hands. (Now, try not to be prurient,
I mean that he was digging in the sands!)
He dug and dug with another limey Until, as Boche guns assailed them, Those two Brits, they shouted "Blimey!" For their spades had sure not failed them.
["Unlike ours!" I recall CCF bellowing at this point, referring to, I believe, some waiters who were slow in fetching him another drink. "Oh, Daddy, really," my Margaret gently chided him, her knees pulled up under her chin.]
What they found that day All of us surely know
It keeps our wives awake at night
And makes our (ahem!) imaginations grow.
They found terrific hieroglyphic,*, The writings of some Pharaoh,
Which Pusby published in plain English, And thrilled the market to its marrow.
[At his club, I had corrected Mitchell several times, explaining with increasing frustration that hieroglyphic was an adjective and hieroglyph the noun, and that his use of the term Pharaoh for an Egyptian king prior to the XVIIIth or XlXth Dynasty was thoroughly anachronistic and, frankly, grated on my ear. The Xlllth-Dynasty Atum-hadu would have been referred to as "King" not by the Hebraicised metonymical device per-o. I repeated this easily a dozen times as silver
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