rsinoe
and I could earn our bread, but the little ones--the little ones."

With these words the girl fell on her knees lifting her hands in
entreaty to her obstinate parent. The blood had mounted to the man's
face and eyes, and pressing his hand to his purple forehead he sank back
in his chair as if stricken with apoplexy. His daughter sprang up and
offered him the cup full of wine and water which was standing on the
table; but Keraunus pushed it aside with his hands, and panted out,
while he struggled for breath:

"Supersede me--in my place--turn me out of this palace! Why there,
in that ebony trunk, lies the rescript of Euergetes which confers the
stewardship of this residence on my ancestor Philip, and as a hereditary
dignity in his family. Now Philip's wife had the honor of being the
king's mistress--or, as some say, his daughter. There lies the document,
drawn up in red and black ink on yellow papyrus and ratified with the
seal and signature of Euergetes the Second. All the princes of the
Lagides have confirmed it, all the Roman prefects have respected it, and
now--now."

"But father" said the girl interrupting her father, and wringing her
hands in despair, "you still hold the place and if you will only give
in."

"Give in, give in," shrieked the corpulent steward shaking his fat hands
above his blood-shot face. "I will give in--I will not bring you all to
misery--for my children's sake I will allow myself to be ill-treated
and down-trodden, I will go--I will go directly. Like the pelican I will
feed my children with my heart's blood. But you ought to know what it
costs me, to humiliate myself thus; it is intolerable to me, and my
heart is breaking--for the architect, the architect has trampled upon
me as if I were his servant; he wished--I heard him with these ears--he
shrieked after me a villainous hope that I might be smothered in my
own fat--and the physician has told me I may die of apoplexy! Leave me,
leave me. I know those Romans are capable of anything. Well--here I am;
fetch me my saffron-colored pallium, that I wear in the council, fetch
me my gold fillet for my head. I will deck myself like a beast for
sacrifice, and I will show him--"

Not a word of this harangue had escaped the ears of the architect who
had been at first indignant and then moved to laughter, and withal it
had touched his heart. A sluggish and torpid character was repugnant to
his vigorous nature, and the deliberate and indifferen