ghter. She is a girl like any other, and will take good care not
to choose a man twice as old as herself, and who might be her father.
Rameses will 'submit'--I am to I submit!' And to what? to the judgment
and the choice of a wilful child!"

With these words he threw the letter so vehemently on to the table, that
it slipped off on to the floor.

The mute slave picked it up, and laid it carefully on the table again,
while his master threw a ball into a silver bason.

Several attendants rushed into the room, and Ani ordered them to
bring to him the captive dwarf of the Lady Katuti. His soul rose in
indignation against the king, who in his remote camp-tent could fancy he
had made him happy by a proof of his highest favor. When we are plotting
against a man we are inclined to regard him as an enemy, and if he
offers us a rose we believe it to be for the sake, not of the perfume,
but of the thorns.

The dwarf Nemu was brought before the Regent and threw himself on the
ground at his feet.

Ani ordered the attendants to leave him, and said to the little man

"You compelled me to put you in prison. Stand up!" The dwarf rose and
said, "Be thanked--for my arrest too."

The Regent looked at him in astonishment; but Nemu went on half humbly,
half in fun, "I feared for my life, but thou hast not only not shortened
it, but hast prolonged it; for in the solitude of the dungeon time
seemed long, and the minutes grown to hours."

"Keep your wit for the ladies," replied the Regent. "Did I not know that
you meant well, and acted in accordance with the Lady Katuti's fancy, I
would send you to the quarries."

"My hands," mumbled the dwarf, "could only break stones for a game of
draughts; but my tongue is like the water, which makes one peasant rich,
and carries away the fields of another."

"We shall know how to dam it up."

"For my lady and for thee it will always flow the right way," said the
dwarf. "I showed the complaining citizens who it is that slaughters
their flesh and blood, and from whom to look for peace and content. I
poured caustic into their wounds, and praised the physician."

"But unasked and recklessly," interrupted Ani; "otherwise you have shown
yourself capable, and I am willing to spare you for a future time. But
overbusy friends are more damaging than intelligent enemies. When I need
your services I will call for you. Till then avoid speech. Now go to
your mistress, and carry to Katuti this letter which ha