These workers scoop out that excess of sand with baskets. They are dressed most miserably, and look a bit miserable themselves. I can hardly imagine going about so miserably.
The young aristocrat, on whose every word I hang— oh, that voice!— was describing the notable Egyptologist Sir Theophilus Pinkhorn, a man who has been unearthing the dead for years, and who recently discovered a mummy that sprang to life and immediately began trying to seduce a librarian! What a dizzy mummy! But Percy Longville interjected that unearthing ancient deadly evils had little to no scientific value, and the poor boy killed the conversation dead.
Mr. Longville asked me what I thought, but he would call me Missus— that boy has got it in his head that I am some married old crone or some such! I reminded him that he must be amiss, for I am merely a Miss.
There ' s always such an awkwardness to conversation when one group is in total agreement, and someone with a different perspective joins in. I often wish I could wield tact and grace like a tool and bridge that gap. What could I have said to include Mr. Longville, but also keep the conversation going? I wish I knew!
I thought Mr. Longville might join us as we observed the site, but Hargrave asked him, and he declined. I do not know why he had to be such a bore about it. He is busying himself with scribbling notes inside one of his journals.
I may be a bit bold in saying that it was nice to spend some time alone with Lord Hargrave. I dined with him. Heavens, the sand, and the perfumes, and the man were nearly intoxicating. I wanted to try the cultural menu— as I have often said, one must always be eager to try new things— but Lord Hargrave has such a caring attitude and would insist that I dine like a proper Englishwoman: sausage, egg, and chips. This menu is foreign to the poor Africans— perhaps this is why they are so miserable all the time?
I sat with him during his evening toilette, to which I would have objected, of course, on grounds of impropriety, but who am I to argue? Clearly, he thought of me as the most important person in the camp, and allowed me to be present. He shaved, and combed his hair, and started to change his shirt but neglected to finish( which I did not notice, of course, because we are in the desert and it would have been quite inappropriate of me to observe his handsome athletic body— fit and perfect like one of those statues at the museum). Rather, I paid most attention to when he read to me for a bit. The book he was reading was a bit dry, and the serving boy was about to exit and leave us alone, but I wouldn ' t risk such impropriety. So, in the end, I excused myself with the child and went back to my own tent for the night.
Wednesday, May the Nineteenth
I woke up promptly, bright and early. I set about at once gathering my tools for the Hargrave dig. The rest of the Tour chose to travel to Thebes to inspect the cursed mummy of Lord Hallifax. I later learned that Lord Hallifax ' s mummy turned out to be less cursed than was previously expected. They say only one thing is to be done with a lifeless mummy, and that ' s to turn it into some philter or draft for the benefit of someone else ' s health. And, sadly, their mummy seems to be entirely contented with being ground up into a fine powder and ingested as a tonic for virility. It did not even raise the slightest objection. One thinks a small plague to be in order on principle alone. Perhaps one with frogs, or at least something involving a forged check. But who am I to say what Lord Hallifax ' s mummy should and shouldn ' t do? After all, it is his afterlife.
I was fully prepared to help with the process of using baskets to scoop sand, but Hargrave stopped me, claiming that such work was not proper for an Englishwoman— or, it seems, for an Englishman,