"Have you ever known my tongue sin against the lovely daughter of Ra?"
he exclaimed. "But look here! did I stir up Antef, Hapi, Sent and all
the others or no? Who but I advised you to find out Pentaur? Did I
threaten to beg my father to take me from the school of Seti or not?
I was the instigator of the mischief, I pulled the wires, and if we are
questioned let me speak first. Not one of you is to mention Anana's
name; do you hear? not one of you, and if they flog us or deprive us of
our food we all stick to this, that I was guilty of all the mischief."

"You are a brave fellow!" said the son of the chief priest of Anion,
shaking his right hand, while Anana held his left.

The prince freed himself laughing from their grasp.

"Now the old man may come home," he exclaimed, "we are ready for him.
But all the same I will ask my father to send me to Chennu, as sure as my
name is Rameri, if they do not recall Pentaur."

"He treated us like school-boys!" said the eldest of the young
malefactors.

"And with reason," replied Rameri, "I respect him all the more for it.
You all think I am a careless dog--but I have my own ideas, and I will
speak the words of wisdom."

With these words he looked round on his companions with comical gravity,
and continued--imitating Ameni's manner:

"Great men are distinguished from little men by this--they scorn and
contemn all which flatters their vanity, or seems to them for the moment