ld I do otherwise if among petitioners there are some who have
suffered without cause, or if there is unrewarded service? Of course
the foundation of the state is justice."

"How many canst Thou hear in a day without weariness?" asked Herhor.

"Well, twenty."

"Thou art happy. I hear at the most six or ten, but they are not
interested in the petitions, they are chief secretaries, overseers, and
ministers. These men report to me no details, only the most important
things that are done in the army, on the estates of the pharaoh, in
questions of religion, in the courts, in the provinces, and touching
movements of the Nile. Therefore they report no trivial matter, because
each man before he comes to me must hear ten inferior secretaries. Each
inferior secretary and overseer collected information from ten sub-
secretaries and sub-inspectors, and they in their turn have heard
reports from ten officials who are under them. In this manner I and his
holiness speaking with only ten people daily know all that is most
important in a hundred thousand points of Egypt and the world beyond
it.

"The watchman in charge of one part of a street in Memphis sees only a
few houses. A decurion of ten policemen knows the whole street, a
centurion a division of the city, the chief knows all the city. The
pharaoh stands above them all, as if he were standing on the highest
pylon of the temple of Ptah, and sees not only Memphis, but the cities,
Sochem, On, Cheran, Turra, Tetani, with their suburbs, and a portion of
the western desert.

"From that height his holiness is unable, it is true, to see the people
who are wronged, or those who are unrewarded, but he is able to see the
crowd of laborers who have collected without work. He cannot see
warriors in the dramshops, but he can know what regiment is exercising.
He cannot see what a given earth-tiller or citizen is preparing for
dinner, but he can see a fire beginning in a given quarter of the city.

"This order in the state," continued Herhor, with growing animation,
"is our strength and glory. Snofru, a pharaoh of the first dynasty,
asked a certain priest what monument he should rear to himself.

"'Draw on the earth, O lord,' replied the priest, 'a square, and put on
it six million unhewn stones; they will represent the people. On that
foundation place sixty thousand hewn stones; they will be the lower
officials. On them place six thousand polished stones; they will be thy
higher officia