not a little horrified to hear him strike his fist on the table and
cry, 'Flatterer, miserable flatterer!' He then turned to Croesus and
asked his opinion. Our wise friend answered at once: 'My opinion is that
you have not attained to the greatness of your father; for,' added he
in a pacifying tone, 'one thing is wanting to you--a son such as Cyrus
bequeathed us in yourself."

"First-rate, first-rate," cried Rhodopis clapping her hands and
laughing. "An answer that would have done honor to the ready-witted
Odysseus himself. And how did the king take your honeyed pill?"

"He was very much pleased, thanked Croesus, and called him his friend."

"And I," said Croesus taking up the conversation, "used the favorable
opportunity to dissuade him from the campaigns he has been planning
against the long lived Ethiopians, the Ammonians and the Carthaginians.
Of the first of these three nations we know scarcely anything but
through fabulous tales; by attacking them we should lose much and gain
little. The oasis of Ammon is scarcely accessible to a large army, on
account of the desert by which it is surrounded; besides which, it
seems to me sacrilegious to make war upon a god in the hope of obtaining
possession of his treasures, whether we be his worshippers or not. As
to the Carthaginians, facts have already justified my predictions. Our
fleet is manned principally by Syrians and Phoenicians, and they have,
as might be expected, refused to go to war against their brethren.
Cambyses laughed at my reasons, and ended by swearing, when he was
already somewhat intoxicated, that he could carry out difficult
undertakings and subdue powerful nations, even without the help of
Bartja and Phanes."

"What could that allusion to you mean, my son?" asked Rhodopis.

"He won the battle of Pelusiam," cried Zopyrus, before his friend could
answer. "He and no one else!"

"Yes," added Croesus, "and you might have been more prudent, and have
remembered that it is a dangerous thing to excite the jealousy of a man
like Cambyses. You all of you forget that his heart is sore, and that
the slightest vexation pains him. He has lost the woman he really loved;
his dearest friend is gone; and now you want to disparage the last thing
in this world that he still cares for,--his military glory."

"Don't blame him," said Bartja, grasping the old man's hand. "My brother
has never been unjust, and is far from envying me what I must call my
good fortune, for th