Breuggen would have it—with my own hands from out of the Egyptian earth. I believe only in what is real, as you gentlemen do.
Now if I were to lay out before you the threads of scholarship, pains• takingly gathered over decades and spun to their most tensile resiliency in my own work, if you were to pore over this abundant knowledge as I have, you would, in your simple common sense, laugh at the hairsplit• ting chatter rising from the sterile offices across the river, and you would say, as I read in the Boston Mercury recently that you said of the Attorney General, 'Why don't that boring little man stick with his own beeswax and leave Heinzie Kovacs to Heinzie Kovacs!' and bravo, I thought, as I read that."
"Bravo, indeed," chimed CCF. O'Toole filed his nails. "You see what I'm thinking here, JP? " CCF addressed O'Toole. "Answers everyone's needs, seems to me. Pushy, tell 'em about what the tomb probably looks like."
When asking rich men for their money, be a little standoffish. They want to know that they will get their money back with interest, but they also want to see that you understand there is no guarantee they will. Even as you guarantee they will. They want you to be smarter
than they are, but not in everything, and to acknowledge their superi• ority in matters of finance and "common sense." They would like to dis• play one or two insights into your expertise that have not occurred to you before. Any more than one or two, and they will think you a fool; any fewer, arrogant. They do not want you to ask for their money; they want you to present them with an opportunity and accept less of their investment than they are willing to make. Be dubious of their money, stress the risks even as you underplay the rewards. These, I am afraid, are the lessons any Egyptologist must master. Example:
"Gentlemen. The tomb of Atum-hadu is probably a simple opening into the desert cliff face itself. Attending your walk into this covered ar• cade are illustrations of the events of Atum-hadu's reign, and hiero• glyphs describing his glories and heartbreaks, invocations to the gods. Here, as you walk, the paintings tell a story, as if you were at the mov• ing pictures: on your left, let us speculate, he leads his troops against the Hyksos invaders, or the secessionist would-be kings of the eastern delta, or black armies from the African south. On your right, you
watch as he battles conspirators in his own court, impatient nobles who vie for his throne, while he serenely draws close to himself his trusted advisers (as you gentlemen are mine), and his queen, Her Beauty As• tonishes the Sun. This much you and I see as we walk down the entry hall. Now through a small aperture we must crawl and we notice a smell unlike anything you have ever smelled before. I will not say it is immediately sweet or pleasant, but that is because it is unfamiliar—no, more than unfamiliar (which promises familiarity just ahead): it is per• manently unique. You have never smelled this and never will again: it is the first whiff of air that has wafted undisturbed for 3500 years. I do not know if it will make you smile (as it does me) or will make you retch or will arouse you. Our eyes can scarcely open from the sting and the heat and . . . the glare. Yes, the glare, gentlemen: the uncertain light from our electric torches reflects back to us, magnified into blinding rays from gold and glass and ivory and beads and lapis lazuli and gold and gold and gold. Now shall we enter, you and I?"
"I'm sold," says Finneran.
"As well you should be, sir. We know much of our host, Atum-hadu. We know from his writings the external pressures that shaped him, the persona he created to carry him through his career. We know of his overpowering appetites, which he could satisfy only for brief periods and with great difficulty. We know of the family that failed him, the queens and concubines who sustained him, the trusted Master of Largesse who was his
Now if I were to lay out before you the threads of scholarship, pains• takingly gathered over decades and spun to their most tensile resiliency in my own work, if you were to pore over this abundant knowledge as I have, you would, in your simple common sense, laugh at the hairsplit• ting chatter rising from the sterile offices across the river, and you would say, as I read in the Boston Mercury recently that you said of the Attorney General, 'Why don't that boring little man stick with his own beeswax and leave Heinzie Kovacs to Heinzie Kovacs!' and bravo, I thought, as I read that."
"Bravo, indeed," chimed CCF. O'Toole filed his nails. "You see what I'm thinking here, JP? " CCF addressed O'Toole. "Answers everyone's needs, seems to me. Pushy, tell 'em about what the tomb probably looks like."
When asking rich men for their money, be a little standoffish. They want to know that they will get their money back with interest, but they also want to see that you understand there is no guarantee they will. Even as you guarantee they will. They want you to be smarter
than they are, but not in everything, and to acknowledge their superi• ority in matters of finance and "common sense." They would like to dis• play one or two insights into your expertise that have not occurred to you before. Any more than one or two, and they will think you a fool; any fewer, arrogant. They do not want you to ask for their money; they want you to present them with an opportunity and accept less of their investment than they are willing to make. Be dubious of their money, stress the risks even as you underplay the rewards. These, I am afraid, are the lessons any Egyptologist must master. Example:
"Gentlemen. The tomb of Atum-hadu is probably a simple opening into the desert cliff face itself. Attending your walk into this covered ar• cade are illustrations of the events of Atum-hadu's reign, and hiero• glyphs describing his glories and heartbreaks, invocations to the gods. Here, as you walk, the paintings tell a story, as if you were at the mov• ing pictures: on your left, let us speculate, he leads his troops against the Hyksos invaders, or the secessionist would-be kings of the eastern delta, or black armies from the African south. On your right, you
watch as he battles conspirators in his own court, impatient nobles who vie for his throne, while he serenely draws close to himself his trusted advisers (as you gentlemen are mine), and his queen, Her Beauty As• tonishes the Sun. This much you and I see as we walk down the entry hall. Now through a small aperture we must crawl and we notice a smell unlike anything you have ever smelled before. I will not say it is immediately sweet or pleasant, but that is because it is unfamiliar—no, more than unfamiliar (which promises familiarity just ahead): it is per• manently unique. You have never smelled this and never will again: it is the first whiff of air that has wafted undisturbed for 3500 years. I do not know if it will make you smile (as it does me) or will make you retch or will arouse you. Our eyes can scarcely open from the sting and the heat and . . . the glare. Yes, the glare, gentlemen: the uncertain light from our electric torches reflects back to us, magnified into blinding rays from gold and glass and ivory and beads and lapis lazuli and gold and gold and gold. Now shall we enter, you and I?"
"I'm sold," says Finneran.
"As well you should be, sir. We know much of our host, Atum-hadu. We know from his writings the external pressures that shaped him, the persona he created to carry him through his career. We know of his overpowering appetites, which he could satisfy only for brief periods and with great difficulty. We know of the family that failed him, the queens and concubines who sustained him, the trusted Master of Largesse who was his
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