Presently he paused. "You're a fine one to be an M.P.'s lady," he said.
"You stout, underworked fool."

Ben urged on his imaginings: he advised his monarch, and to him for
favors merchants brought their gold, and mothers their daughters. Winter
and spring moved, and then his mind brought his enemies to his door.

"As the root of a tree spreads in the bosom of the earth," he said, "so
my fame shall spread over the world"; and he built a fence about his
house.

But his mind would not be stilled. Every midnight his enemies were at
the fence, and he could not sleep for the dreadful outcry; every
midnight he arose from his bed and walked aside the fence, testing the
strength of it with a hand and a shoulder and shooing away his enemies
as one does a brood of chickens from a cornfield.

His fortieth summer ran out--a season of short days and nights speeding
on the heels of night. Then peace fell upon him; and at dusk of a day he
came into his room, and he saw one sitting in a chair. He went up to the
chair and knelt on a knee, and said: "Your Majesty...."




III

THE TWO APOSTLES