My particular friend Ward¹ Mortimer was one of the best men of his day at everything connected with Oriental arch?ology. He had written largely upon the subject, he had lived two years in a tomb at Thebes, while he excavated² in the Valley of the Kings, and finally he had created a considerable sensation by his exhumation³ of the alleged⁴ mummy of Cleopatra in the inner room of the Temple of Horus, at Phil?. With such a record at the age of thirty-one, it was felt that a considerable career lay before him, and no one was surprised when he was elected to the curatorship of the Belmore Street Museum, which carries with it the lectureship at the Oriental College, and an income which has sunk with the fall in land, but which still remains⁵ at that ideal sum which is large enough to encourage an investigator⁶, but not so large as to enervate⁷ him.

There was only one reason which made Ward Mortimer’s position a little difficult at the Belmore Street Museum, and that was the extreme eminence⁸ of the man whom he had to succeed. Professor Andreas was a profound scholar and a man of European reputation. His lectures were frequented by students from every part of the world, and his admirable management 150of the collection intrusted to his care was a commonplace in all learned societies. There was, therefore, considerable surprise when, at the age of fifty-five, he suddenly resigned his position and retired⁹ from those duties which had been both his livelihood¹⁰ and his pleasure. He and his daughter left the comfortable

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