copied and sold,
though out of them I made but little. Still my fame grew till on a day
I received a message from the Prince Seti, my twin in Ra, saying that he
had read certain of my writings which pleased him much and that it was
his wish to look upon my face. I thanked him humbly by the messenger and
answered that I would travel to Tanis and wait upon his Highness. First,
however, I finished the longest story which I had yet written. It was
called the Tale of Two Brothers, and told how the faithless wife of one
of them brought trouble on the other, so that he was killed. Of how,
also, the just gods brought him to life again, and many other matters.
This story I dedicated to his Highness, the Prince Seti, and with it in
the bosom of my robe I travelled to Tanis, having hidden about me a sum
of gold that I had saved.

So I came to Tanis at the beginning of winter and, walking to the palace
of the Prince, boldly demanded an audience. But now my troubles began,
for the guards and watchmen thrust me from the doors. In the end I
bribed them and was admitted to the antechambers, where were merchants,
jugglers, dancing-women, officers, and many others, all of them, it
seemed, waiting to see the Prince; folk who, having nothing to do,
pleased themselves by making mock of me, a stranger. When I had mixed
with them for several days, I gained their friendship by telling to them
one of my stories, after which I was always welcome among them. Still
I could come no nearer to the Prince, and as my store of money was
beginning to run low, I bethought me that I would return to Memphis.

One day, however, a long-bearded old man, with a gold-tipped wand of
office, who had a bull's head embroidered on his robe, stopped in front
of me and, calling me a white-headed crow, asked me what I was doing
hopping day by day about the chambers of the palace. I told him my name
and business and he told me his, which it seemed was Pambasa, one of
the Prince's chamberlains. When I asked him to take me to the Prince,
he laughed in my face and said darkly that the road to his Highness's
presence was paved with gold. I understood what he meant and gave him a
gift which he took as readily as a cock picks corn, saying that he would
speak of me to his master and that I must come back again.

I came thrice and each time that old cock picked more corn. At last I
grew enraged and, forgetting where I was, began to shout at him and
call him a thief, so that f