y genuine sentiment; and it is enough to turn our brain to
reflect that, if we would not be deceived, every word that we hear--and,
oh dear! how many words we must needs hear-must be pondered in our
minds. Now, the mob on the contrary--who think themselves beautifully
dressed in a threadbare cloth hanging round their brown loins--are far
better off. If one of them says to another of his own class--a naked
wretch who wears about him everything he happens to possess--that he is
a dog, he answers with a blow of his fist in the other's face, and what
can be plainer than that! If on the other hand he tells him he is a
splendid fellow, he believes it without reservation, and has a perfect
right to believe it.

"Did you see how that stunted little fellow with a snub-nose and
bandy-legs, who is as broad as he is long, showed all his teeth in a
delighted grin when I praised his steady hand? He laughs just like a
hyena, and every respectable father of a family looks on the fellow as
a god-forsaken monster; but the immortals must think him worth something
to have given him such magnificent grinders in his ugly mouth, and to
have preserved him mercifully for fifty years--for that is about the
rascal's age. If that fellow's dagger breaks he can kill his victim with
those teeth, as a fox does a duck, or smash his bones with his fist."

"But, my lord," replied Eulaeus dryly and with a certain matter-of-fact
gravity to King Euergetes--for he it was who had come with him into the
room adjoining Klea's retreat, "the dry little Egyptian with the thin
straight hair is even more trustworthy and tougher and nimbler than his
companion, and, so far, more estimable. One flings himself on his prey
with a rush like a block of stone hurled from a roof, but the other,
without being seen, strikes his poisoned fang into his flesh like an
adder hidden in the sand. The third, on whom I had set great hopes, was
beheaded the day before yesterday without my knowledge; but the pair
whom you have condescended to inspect with your own eyes are sufficient.
They must use neither dagger nor lance, but they will easily achieve
their end with slings and hooks and poisoned needles, which leave wounds
that resemble the sting of an adder. We may safely depend on these
fellows."

Once more Euergetes laughed loudly, and exclaimed: What criticism!
Exactly as if these blood-hounds were tragic actors of which one could
best produce his effects by fire and pathos, and t