In this rich African setting were jumbled together, for a few days, people of every race and temper, all involved in one way or another in that complex of hysteria and apathy, majesty and farce; a company shot through with every degree of animosity and suspicion. There were continual rumors born of the general uncertainty; rumors about the date and place of every ceremony; rumors of dissention in high places; rumors that, in the absence at Addis Ababa of all the responsible officials, the interior was seething with brigandage; rumors that Sir Percival Phillips had used the legation wireless; that the Ethiopian Minister to Paris had been refused admittance to Addis Ababa; that the royal coachman had not had his wages for two months and had given in his notice; that the airmen from Aden were secretly prospecting for a service between the capital and the coast; that one of the legations had refused to receive the empress's first lady-in-waiting; above all, there was the great Flea Sandal and the Indiscretion about the Duke of Gloucester's Cook.
- Evelyn Waugh, Remote People, pp.228-229 in Waugh Abroad
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