There was great excitement at the Cairo Hotel the next morning.
The Princess and the Chevalier had disappeared, and with them
Alaster McFeckless, Lady Fitz-Fulke, the doctor, and even his
dahabiyeh! A thousand rumors had been in circulation. Sir Midas
Pyle looked up from the "Times" with his usual I-told-you-so
expression.
"It is the most extraordinary thing, don'tcherknow," said Fitz-
Fulke. "It seems that Dr. Haustus Pilgrim was here professionally--
as a nerve specialist--in the treatment of hallucinations produced
by neurotic conditions, you know."
"A mad doctor, here!" gasped Sir Midas.
"Yes. The Princess, the Chevalier, McFeckless, and even my mother
were all patients of his on the dahabiyeh. He believed,
don'tcherknow, in humoring them and letting them follow out their
cranks, under his management. The Princess was a music-hall artist
who imagined she was a dead and gone Egyptian Princess; and the
queerest of all, 'Arry Axes was also a music-hall singer who
imagined himself Chevalier--you know, the great Koster artist--and
that's how we took him for a Frenchman. McFeckless and my poor old
mother were the only ones with any real rank and position--but you
know what a beastly bounder Mac was, and the poor mater DID overdo
the youthful! We never called the doctor in until the day she
wanted to go to a swell ball in London as Little Red Riding-hood.
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