Old Port Said had disappeared beneath acres of new buildings where one
could walk at leisure without being turned back by soldiers.
Two or three landmarks remained; two or three were reported as still in
existence, and one Face showed itself after many years - ravaged but
respectable - rigidly respectable.
'Yes,' said the Face, 'I have been here all the time. But I have made
money, and when I die I am going home to be buried.'
'Why not go home before you are buried, O Face?'
'Because I have lived here so long. Home is only good to be buried
in.'
'And what do you do, nowadays?'
'Nothing now. I live on my rentes - my income.'
Think of it! To live icily in a perpetual cinematograph show of excited,
uneasy travellers; to watch huge steamers, sliding in and out all day
and all night like railway trucks, unknowing and unsought by a single
soul aboard; to talk five or six tongues indifferently, but to have no
country - no interest in any earth except one reservation in a
Continental cemetery.
It was a cold evening after heavy rain and the half-flooded streets
reeked.
