ends; but they have disguised themselves and cut
their curls also. Indeed, I could almost say that you, my friend, whose
name--"

"My name is Darius."

"That you, Darius, have dyed your hair black. Yes? Then you see my
memory does not deceive me. But that is nothing to boast of, for I saw
you several times at Sais, and here too, on your arrival and departure.
You ask, my prince, whether you would be generally recognized? Certainly
not. The foreign dress, the change in your hair and the coloring of your
eyebrows have altered you wonderfully. But excuse me a moment, my old
steward seems to have some important message to give."

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,