n nodded assent, and took from a chest a clean robe, which
he was about to throw on over the other! but Pentaur hindered him.
"First take off your working dress," he said laughing. "I will help you.
But, by Besa, you have as many coats as an onion."

[Besa, the god of the toilet of the Egyptians. He was represented
as a deformed pigmy. He led the women to conquest in love, and the
men in war. He was probably of Arab origin.]

Pentaur was known as a mighty laugher among his companions, and his loud
voice rung in the quiet room, when he discovered that his friend was
about to put a third clean robe over two dirty ones, and wear no less
than three dresses at once.

Nebsecht laughed too, and said, "Now I know why my clothes were so
heavy, and felt so intolerably hot at noon. While I get rid of my
superfluous clothing, will you go and ask the high-priest if I have
leave to quit the temple."

"He commissioned me to send a leech to the paraschites, and added that
the girl was to be treated like a queen."

"Ameni? and did he know that we have to do with a paraschites?"

"Certainly."

"Then I shall begin to believe that broken limbs may be set with
vows-aye, vows! You know I cannot go alone to the sick, because my
leather tongue is unable to recite the sentences or to wring rich
offerings for the temple from the dying. Go, while I undress, to the
prophet Gagabu and beg him to send the pastophorus Teta, who usually
accompanies me."

"I would seek a young assistant rather than that blind old man."

"Not at all. I should be glad if he would stay at home, and only let his
tongue creep after me like an eel or a slug. Head and heart have nothing
to do with his wordy operations, and they go on like an ox treading out
corn."

[In Egypt, as in Palestine, beasts trod out the corn, as we learn
from many pictures in the catacombs, even in the remotest ages;
often with the addition of a weighted sledge, to the runners of
which rollers are attached. It is now called noreg.]

"It is true," said Pentaur; "just lately I saw the old man singing out
his litanies by a sick-bed, and all the time quietly counting the dates,
of which they had given him a whole sack-full."

"He will be unwilling to go to the paraschites, who is poor, and he
would sooner seize the whole brood of scorpions yonder than take a piece
of bread from the hand of the unclean. Tell him to come and fetch me,
and drink some wine. There stands th