As to the promised Constitution, the London Press declared that it was mere talk, a pretext of the kind that the ex-Khedive Ismaïl had made use of against Wilson, and Malet was reported to have declared that it would remain a promise only because the Sultan whom he had seen at Constantinople on his way back to Egypt would never allow it.
The Ottoman Commission added to my distrust of the whole movement and the fact that Arabi had demanded an increase of the army to the number of 18,000 men. These were the common views of the day in England and I had no special knowledge in correction of them.
I remember shortly before leaving London, that when I called on my cousin Philip Currie at the Foreign Office, he surprised me by expressing an opinion that perhaps there was something more in the National Movement in Egypt than appeared on the surface. "Malet," he said, "is rather inclined now to believe in it. I wonder you do not go there. Perhaps you might find in Arabi just the man you have been looking for."
He knew of course my ideas, which he had never taken quite seriously or as more than a romantic fancy, and his words were lightly spoken and we laughed together without discussion. Yet afterwards I recalled them to memory and wondered that I had been so little responsive. My thoughts, however, were fixed elsewhere.
It is worth recording that the night before I started I entertained at dinner at the Travellers' Club three of my then rather intimate friends, John Morley, who had recently become editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette" besides being editor of the "Fortnightly Review," Sir Alfred Lyall, and our Consul at Jeddah, Zohrab. With these I had a long talk about Mohammedan and Eastern affairs, and it was agreed between me and Morley that, if I found the champion of Arabian reform that I was seeking, I should let him know and he would do his best to put his claims prominently before the English public.