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An Egyptian Princess — Volume 08 by Georg Ebers
page 58 of 73 (79%)

In a few minutes Theopompus came back, exclaiming: "No, no, my honored
friends, you have certainly not taken the wisest way of entering
Naukratis incognito. You have been joking with the flower-girls and
paying them for a few roses, not like runaway Lydian Hekatontarchs, but
like the great lords you are. All Naukratis knows the pretty, frivolous
sisters, Stephanion, Chloris and Irene, whose garlands have caught many a
heart, and whose sweet glances have lured many a bright obolus out of the
pockets of our gay young men. They're very fond of visiting the flower-
girls at market-time, and agreements are entered into then for which more
than one gold piece must be paid later; but for a few roses and good
words they are not accustomed to be so liberal as you have been. The
girls have been boasting about you and your gifts, and showing your good
red gold to their stingier suitors. As rumor is a goddess who is very
apt to exaggerate and to make a crocodile out of a lizard, it happened
that news reached the Egyptian captain on guard at the market, that some
newly-arrived Lydian warriors had been scattering gold broadcast among
the flower-girls. This excited suspicion, and induced the Toparch to
send an officer here to enquire from whence you come, and what is the
object of your journey hither. I was obliged to use a little stratagem
to impose upon him, and told him, as I believe you wish, that you were
rich young men from Sardis, who had fled on account of having incurred
the satrap's ill-will. But I see the government officer coming, and with
him the secretary who is to make out passports which will enable you to
remain on the Nile unmolested. I have promised him a handsome reward, if
he can help you in getting admitted into the king's mercenaries. He was
caught and believed my story. You are so young, that nobody would
imagine you were entrusted with a secret mission."

The talkative Greek had scarcely finished speaking when the clerk, a
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