for your, for our first duty, O my friends, is always this--to guide the
souls of those who trust in us to goodness and truth."

"Oh, my master!" cried Pentaur, "how tender is thy severity."

"I have shown the hideous sores of this man's soul," said the old man, as
he rose to quit the hall. "Your praise will aggravate them, your blame
will tend to heal them. Nay, if you are not content to do your duty, old
Gagabu will come some day with his knife, and will throw the sick man
down and cut out the canker."

During this speech the haruspex had frequently shrugged his shoulders.
Now he said, turning to the priests from Chennu--

"Gagabu is a foolish, hot-headed old man, and you have heard from his
lips just such a sermon as the young scribes keep by them when they enter
on the duties of the care of souls. His sentiments are excellent, but he
easily overlooks small things for the sake of great ones. Ameni would
tell you that ten souls, no, nor a hundred, do not matter when the safety
of the whole is in question."