Pyke and Pluck= (_Messrs._), the tools and toadies of Sir Mulberry Hawk.
They laugh at all his jokes, snub all who attempt to rival their patron,
and are ready to swear to anything Sir Mulberry wishes to have
confirmed.--C. Dickens, _Nicholas Nickleby_ (1838).

=Pylades and Orestes=, inseparable friends. Pylad[^e]s was a nephew of
King Agamemnon, and Orest[^e]s was Agamemnon's son. The two cousins
contracted a friendship which has become proverbial. Subsequently,
Pylad[^e]s married Orest[^e]s's sister, Electra.

Lagrange-Chancel has a French drama entitled _Oreste et Pylade_ (1695).
Voltaire also (_Oreste_, 1750). The two characters are introduced into a
host of plays, Greek, Italian, French, and English. (See ANDROMACHE.)

=Pynchons= (_The_). _Mr. Pynchon_, a "representative of the highest and
noblest class" in the Massachusetts Colony; one of the first settlers in
Agawam (Springfield, Mass.).

_Mrs. Pynchon_ (a second wife), a woman of excellent sense, with
thorough reverence for her husband.

_Mary Pynchon_, beautiful and winning girl, afterward wedded to Elizur
Holyoke.

_John Pynchon_, a promising boy.--J. G. Holland, _The Bay Path_ (1857).

=Pyncheon= (_Col._). An old bachelor, possessed of great wealth, and of an
eccentric and melancholy turn of mind, the owner and tenant of the old
Pyncheon mansion. He dies suddenly, after a life of selfish devotion to
his own interests, and is thus found when the house is opened in the
morning.--Nathaniel Hawthorne, _The House of the Seven Gables_ (1851).

=Pyrac'mon=, one of Vulcan's workmen in the smithy of Mount Etna. (Greek,
_p[^u]r akm[^o]n_, "fire anvil.")

Far passing Bronteus or Pyracmon great,
The which in Lipari do day and night
Frame thunderbolts for Jove.

Spenser, _Fa[:e]ry Queen_, iv. 5 (1596).

=Pyramid.= According to Diodo'rus Sic'ulus (_Hist._, i.), and Pliny (_Nat.
Hist._, xxxvi. 12), there were 360,000 men employed for nearly twenty
years upon one of the pyramids.

The largest pyramid was built by Cheops or Suphis, the next largest by
Cephr[=e]n[^e]s or Sen-Suphis, and the third by Mench[=e]r[^e]s, last
king of the Fourth Egyptian dynasty, said to have lived before the birth
of Abraham.

_The Third Pyramid._ Another tradition is that the third pyramid was
built by Rhod[)o]pis or Rhodop[^e], the Greek courtezan. Rhodopis means
the "rosy-cheeked."

The Rhodop[^e] that built the pyramid.

Tennyson, _The Prince