Like Acestes' shaft of old,
The swift thought kindles as it flies.

Longfellow, _To a Child_.

ACHATES [_A-ka'-teze_], called by Virgil "fidus Achates." The name has
become a synonym for a bosom friend, a crony, but is generally used
laughingly.--_The Æneid_.

He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb.

Byron, _Don Juan_, i. 159.

ACHER'IA, the fox, went partnership with a bear in a bowl of: milk.
Before the bear arrived, the fox skimmed off the cream and drank the
milk; then, filling the bowl with mud, replaced the cream atop. Says
the fox, "Here is the bowl; one shall have the cream, and the other
all the rest: choose, friend, which you like." The bear told the fox
to take the cream, and thus bruin had only the mud.--_A Basque Tale_.

A similar tale occurs in Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West
Highlands_ (iii. 98), called "The Keg of Butter." The wolf chooses the
_bottom_ when "oats" were the object of choice, and the _top_ when
"potatoes" were the sowing.

Rabelais tells the same tale about a farmer and the devil. Each was
to have on alternate years what grew _under_ and _over_ the soil. The
farmer sowed turnips and carrots when the _under_-soil produce came
to his lot, and barley or wheat when his turn was the _over_-soil
produce.