nd.
People of that stamp, who are not ashamed to worship, who do not
philosophize but only think just so much as is necessary for acting
rightly, those are the worst contemners of every supersensual
manifestation."

"And the students of nature in the Museum?" asked Krates. "They believe
nothing to be real that they cannot see and observe."

"And for that very reason," replied the high-priest, "they are often
singularly easy to deceive by your skill, since, seeing an effect
without a cause, they are inclined to regard the invisible cause as
something supersensual. Now, open the door again and let us get out by
the side door; do you, this time, undertake the task of cooperating with
Serapis yourself. Consider that Philometor will not confirm the
donation of the land unless he quits the temple deeply penetrated by the
greatness of our god. Would it be possible, do you think, to have the
new censer ready in time for the birthday of King Euergetes, which is to
be solemnly kept at Memphis?"

"We will see," replied Krates, "I must first put together the lock
of the great door of the tomb of Apis, for so long as I have it in my
workshop any one can open it who sticks a nail into the hole above the
bar, and any one can shut it inside who pushes the iron bolt. Send to
call me before the performance with the lights begins; I will come in
spite of my wretched feet. As I have undertaken the thing I will carry
it out, but for no other reason, for it is my opinion that even without
such means of deception--"

"We use no deception," interrupted the high-priest, sternly rebuking his
colleague. "We only present to short-sighted mortals the creative power
of the divinity in a form perceptible and intelligible to their senses."

With these words the tall priest turned his back on the smith and
quitted the hall by a side door; Krates opened the brazen door, and as
he gathered together his tools he said to himself, but loud enough for
Klea to hear him distinctly in her hiding-place:

"It may be right for me, but deceit is deceit, whether a god deceives a
king or a child deceives a beggar."

"Deceit is deceit," repeated Klea after the smith when he had left the
hall and she had emerged from her corner.

She stood still for a moment and looked round her. For the first time
she observed the shabby colors on the walls, the damage the pillars had
sustained in the course of years, and the loose slabs in the pavement.

The sweetness of t