ring his reign. Here, then, was an instance of
king-mimicking that was admirable.

Originally the young man had been gifted with breadth of shoulder,
depth of chest, health and vigor. He would have been strong had he
never vaulted a pole or run a mile. To these advantages were added the
results of wise and thorough training, so wise, so thorough, that
defects in the national physique had been remedied. Thus, the calves
were stanch and prominent, whereas ancient Egypt was as flat-legged as
the negro; the body was round and tapered with proper athletic rapidity
from shoulder to heel, without any sign of the lank attenuation that
was characteristic of most of his countrymen.

The suggestion of his presence was power and bigness, not the
good-natured size that is hulking and awkward, but bigness that is
elegant and fine-fibered and ages into magnificence.

He wore a tunic of white linen, the finely plaited skirt reaching
almost to the knees. The belt was of leather, three fingers in breadth
and ornamented with metal pieces, small, round and polished. His
sandals were of white gazelle-hide, stitched with gold, and, by way of
ornament, he had but a single armlet, and a collar, consisting of ten
golden rings, depending by eyelets from a flexible band of the same
material. The metal was unpolished and its lack-luster red harmonized
wonderfully with the bronze throat it clasped.

Diminutive Isis in profile had emerged part-way from the background of
papyrus, and the sculptor lifted his pen to sketch in the farther
shoulder as the law required. The young man leaned forward and
watched. But as the addition was made, giving to the otherwise shapely
little goddess an uncomfortable but thoroughly orthodox twist, he
frowned slightly. After a moment's silence he came to the bench.

"Hast thou caught some great idea on the wing or hast thou the round of
actual labor to perform?" he asked.

His attention thus hailed, the sculptor raised himself and answered:

"Meneptah hath a temple to Set[1] in mind; indeed he hath stirred up
the quarries for the stone, I am told, and I am making ready, for I
shall be needed."

The older a civilization, the smoother its speech. Age refines the
vowels and makes the consonants suave. They spoke easily, not hastily,
but as oil flows, continuously and without ripple. The younger voice
was deep, soft enough to have been wooing and as musical as a chant.

"Would that the work were as pr