CHAPTER X MY PLEADING IN DOWNING STREET

I delivered all Arabi's messages about the Slave Trade and the other projects of reform, and then went on to explain Colvin's position and Malet's. He said, almost pathetically, "What can we do? They are esteemed public servants and have received honours for their work in Egypt." He insisted upon the word honours. He then asked me to tell him something about the civilian leaders of the National Party, and I explained the position of some of them, Mohammed Abdu, Ahmed Mahmud, Saadallah Hallabi, Hassan Shereï, and others of the Deputies, and, lastly, Abdallah Nadim, journalist and orator. This designation at once excited Mr. Gladstone, and the account of his eloquence, and he took down his name upon a slip of paper. Thus time slipped away till it was twelve o'clock, and he had another appointment. I had been with him forty minutes—a very fast forty minutes too. As I was going out I turned and asked him, with a sudden thought, whether I might not send Arabi some message from him in answer to his messages. He thought an instant and said, "I think not." And very slowly and deliberately: "But you are at liberty to state your own impression of my sentiments," and then in a sort of House of Commons voice, which was in strange contrast with the extremely personal and human tone in which he had been