e you got through yours, Euergetes? Even more had
accumulated for you than for us."

"All were settled in an hour," replied the other promptly. "My eye is
quicker than the mouth of your reader, and my decisions commonly consist
of three words while you dictate long treatises to your scribes. So I had
done when you had scarcely begun, and yet I could tell you at once, if it
were not too tedious a matter, every single case that has come before me
for months, and explain it in all its details."

"That I could not indeed," said Philometor modestly, "but I know and
admire your swift intelligence and accurate memory."

"You see I am more fit for a king than you are;" laughed Euergetes. "You
are too gentle and debonair for a throne! Hand over your government to
me. I will fill your treasury every year with gold. I beg you now, come
to Alexandria with Cleopatra for good, and share with me the palace and
the gardens in the Bruchion. I will nominate your little Philopator heir
to the throne, for I have no wish to contract a permanent tie with any
woman, as Cleopatra belongs to you. This is a bold proposal, but reflect,
Philometor, if you were to accept it, how much time it would give you for
your music, your disputations with the Jews, and all your other favorite
occupations."

"You never know how far you may go with your jest!" interrupted
Cleopatra. "Besides, you devote quite as much time to your studies in
philology and natural history as he does to music and improving
conversations with his learned friends."

"Just so," assented Philometor, "and you may be counted among the sages
of the Museum with far more reason than I."

"But the difference between us," replied Euergetes, "is that I despise
all the philosophical prattlers and rubbish-collectors in Alexandria
almost to the point of hating them, while for science I have as great a
passion as for a lover. You, on the contrary, make much of the learned
men, but trouble yourself precious little about science."

"Drop the subject, pray," begged Cleopatra. "I believe that you two have
never yet been together for half an hour without Euergetes having begun
some dispute, and Philometor having at last given in, to pacify him. Our
guests must have been waiting for us a long time. Had Publius Scipio made
his appearance?"

"He had sent to excuse himself," replied the king as he scratched the
poll of Cleopatra's parrot, parting its feathers with the tips of his
fingers. "Lysias