"Yes, your Highness. I am wise like your Highness's uncle, Khaemuas the
mighty magician, whose sandals I used to clean when I was young."

"Is it so? Then why are you so careful to hide your wisdom which should
be open like a flower for us poor bees to suck at? Well, I am glad to
learn that you are wise, for in this book of magic that I have been
reading I find problems worthy of Khaemuas the departed, whom I only
remember as a brooding, black-browed man much like my cousin, Amenmeses
his son--save that no one can call Amenmeses wise."

"Why is your Highness glad?"

"Because you, being by your own account his equal, can now interpret the
matter as Khaemuas would have done. You know, Pambasa, that had he lived
he would have been Pharaoh in place of my father. He died too soon,
however, which proves to me that there was something in this tale of
his wisdom, since no really wise man would ever wish to be Pharaoh of
Egypt."

Pambasa stared with his mouth open.

"Not wish to be Pharaoh!" he began--

"Now, Pambasa the Wise," went on the Prince as though he had not heard
him. "Listen. This old book gives a charm 'to empty the heart of its
weariness,' that it says is the oldest and most common sickness in the
world from which only kittens, some children, and mad people are free.
It appears that the cure for this sickness, so says the book, is to
stand on the top of the pyramid of Khufu at midnight at that moment when