Memoirs of an editor : fifty years of American journalism / Edward P. Mitchell.

LATER YEARS ON THE FIRING LINE

361

The appetite that ensues upon an active fever is worth the price,
and I indulge it profitably but with the restraint that even advanced years do not always inculcate.
Please write, even if it is apropos of nothing. Yours faithfully,
LAFFAN.
Laffan then had been in Egypt, a dangerous place always for him to inhabit. On his return to Naples he had
written:
I got the President's [Roosevelt's] letter and yours on Monday and very glad I was to hear from you. It was sad to hear
of poor [Frank] Church's state. I regret it deeply, but I suppose
that it only remains for us to do what we can for him and stand
by him till it is over. Have you got any one to help you? It is
absolutely necessary to enlarge your force. It is not broad
enough, or strong enough, not merely in respect to Church's
defection, but in its elasticity. I hope you will not wait for me
to come home but that you will act on your own initiative.
I was not well in November, I was unwell in December and
January, and in Egypt I was bad. It took Luxor to bring me
to my senses. You can understand my condition when I tell
you that I was only equal to an hour of the Museum at Cairo,
and that I went to the Valley of the Kings only because Davis
[Theodore Davis, before Carnarvon and Carter a triumphant
explorer of the Tombs] carried me there in an arm chair. After
four days' observation a capable English physician declared it
typhoid.
I had all the advantages of that ailment, exhibited all the required symptoms and entered upon a proper progress toward
a neat Egyptian grave, when, without any notice whatever, my
temperature suddenly declined to normal. It was most irregular
but grateful. I lost thirty pounds during the few days that it
lasted and emerged a wreck. I was bad enough before but this
last state was almost too much. However, I am picking up,
and during the ten dclays that I have been here, I have spent two

hours and a half in the Museum without doing myself up. It
has not been possible to do more because of the things set forth
in the appended pages, and I am now trying to get away to
Rome.
The President's letter is extraordinary... The paper is
splendid and many things have gone easily that had been very