homage which is paid to greatness.  I would fain have been a popular
orator, feeding myself on the incense tendered to me by thousands;
or failing that, a man born to power, whom those around him were
compelled to respect, and perhaps to fear.  I am not ashamed to
acknowledge this, and I believe that most of my neighbours in Friday
Street would own as much were they as candid and open-hearted as
myself. 

It is now some time since I was recommended to pass the first four
months of the year in Cairo because I had a sore-throat.  The doctor
may have been right, but I shall never divest myself of the idea
that my partners wished to be rid of me while they made certain
changes in the management of the firm.  They would not otherwise
have shown such interest every time I blew my nose or relieved my
huskiness by a slight cough;--they would not have been so intimate
with that surgeon from St.  Bartholomew's who dined with them twice
at the Albion; nor would they have gone to work directly that my
back was turned, and have done those very things which they could
not have done had I remained at home.  Be that as it may, I was
frightened and went to Cairo, and while there I made a trip to Suez