midnight
`` Is not Ismail the Khedive master in Egypt ? '' `` Sit down and smoke , '' said Ismail eagerly , handing Dicky a cigarette . ... . When Dicky left the Khedive at midnight , he thought he saw a better day dawning for Egypt . He felt also that he had done the land a good turn in trying to break the shameless contract between Ismail and Sadik the Mouffetish ; and he had the Khedive 's promise that it should be broken , given as Ismail pinned on his breast the Order of the Mejidieh . He was not , however , prepared to hear of the arrest of the Mouffetish before another sunset , and then of his hugger-mugger death , of which the world talks to this day ; though the manner of it is only known to a few , and to them it is an ugly memory . Up to thirty-two years of age David Hyam , of the village of Framley , in Staffordshire , was not a man of surprises .