nd honorable
one.

You would have heard, too, in that far-off golden age, of the winged
tramp--a beautiful youth who spent his life in travelling from place to
place, sometimes on the earth, sometimes in the air, walking or flying
as the humor seized him: a merry fellow withal, and the very Prince of
the wandering brotherhood.

He was, indeed, a true Prince, for his father, Zeus, was King of
Olympia, and his mother, Maia, was descended from the Titans, an ancient
and royal family.

Instead of living in the grand Olympian palace, however, Maia preferred
to remain in her own home--a beautiful grotto on the hill Kyllene, and
it was here that the young Prince Hermes was born.

Even then babies were wonderful beings, as they are now, and always must
be; but of all astonishing and precocious infants Hermes was certainly
the most remarkable.

Cuddled and wrapped in his cradle, and six hours old by the sun, he
leaped to his feet, and ran swiftly across the hard, uneven floor of
Maia's cave.

Just outside the door he spied a tortoise.

"Aha, my fine fellow!" said this wonderful baby, "you are just the
person I wished to see."

The tortoise was so taken by surprise that he could not find a word to
say, and by the time he had made up his mind that the best thing for him
to do was to get out of the way, there was nothing left of him to get
away with, for the baby Prince had thrust out his eyes, and had
converted his shell into a lyre.

Hermes smiled as he held it between his hands, and then, seating himself
by his mother's side, he began to sing, recounting to her all the most
wonderful events of her life.

It was now that Maia discovered for the first time that her baby wore
on his feet a curious pair of sandals, on each of which grew tiny wings.

She turned quickly to clasp him in her hands, for she knew by the sign
of the winged shoes that he would soon fly away from the little grotto
of Kyllene.

But Hermes sprang out of her reach, and laughed gayly as she chased him
about the cave, hardly stopping to turn his head as he bounded past her,
and out into the open air, carrying his lyre in his hand, and wearing on
his head a funny little hat, on which were two wings like those upon his
shoes.

Faster and faster he flew, now floating on the wind like a swallow, now
bounding over the earth, and now rising just above the tops of the
highest trees.

This was the little tramp's first journey, and his errand, I am sor