Not That it Matters

<p>..de Bunsen de Burgh and de Butts. But it is time that I returned to our hero Dr. Wallis Budge. Although Budge is a golfer of world-wide experience having conducted excavations in Egypt the Island of Meroe Nineveh and Mesopotamia it is upon his mental rather than his athletic abilities that the author dwells most lovingly. </p><p> </p><p>The fact that in 1886 he wrote a pamphlet upon The Coptic History of Elijah the Tishbite and followed it up in 1888 with one on The Coptic Martyrdom of George of Cappadocia (which is of course in every drawing-room) may not seem at first to have much bearing upon the tremendous events which followed later. </p><p> </p><p>But the author is artistically right in drawing our attention to them; for it is probable that had these popular works not been written our hero would never have been encouraged to proceed with his Magical Texts of Za-Walda-Hawaryat Tasfa Maryam Sebhat-Le'ab Gabra Shelase Tezasu Aheta-Mikael which had such a startling effect on the lives of all the other characters and led indirectly to the finding of the blood-stain on the bath-mat. </p><p> </p><p>My own suspicions fell immediately upon Thomas Rooke of whom we are told nothing more than R.W.S. which is obviously the cabbalistic sign of some secret society. One of the author's weaknesses is a certain carelessness in the naming of his characters. For instance no fewer than two hundred and forty-one of them are called Smith. True he endeavours to distinguish between them by giving them such different Christian names as John Henry Charles and so forth but the result is bound to be confusing. Sometimes indeed he does not even bother to distinguish between their Christian names. </p><p> </p><p>Thus we have three Henry Smiths who appear to have mixed themselves up even in the author's mind. He tells us that Colonel Henry's chief recreation is the study of the things around him but it sounds much more like that of the Reverend Henry whose opportunities in the pulpit would be..</p>