“His father is a homely gardener,” said the highpriest, “who indeed tills the land apportioned to him with industry and prudence, but is of humble birth and rough exterior.  He sent Pentaur to the school at an early age, and we have brought up the wonderfully gifted boy to be what he now is.”

“What office does he fill here in the temple?”

“He instructs the elder pupils of the high-school in grammar and eloquence; he is also an excellent observer of the starry heavens, and a most skilled interpreter of dreams,” replied Gagabu.  “But here he is again.  To whom is Paaker conducting our stammering physician and his assistant?”

“To the daughter of the paraschites, who has been run over,” answered Pentaur.  “But what a rough fellow this pioneer is.  His voice hurts my ears, and he spoke to our leeches as if they had been his slaves.”

“He was vexed with the commission the princess had devolved on him,” said the high-priest benevolently, “and his unamiable disposition is hardly mitigated by his real piety.”

“And yet,” said an old priest, “his brother, who left us some years ago, and who had chosen me for his guide and teacher, was a particularly loveable and docile youth.”

“And his father,” said Ameni, was one of the most superior energetic, and withal subtle-minded of men.”

“Then he has derived his bad peculiarities from his mother?”

“By no means.  She is a timid, amiable, soft-hearted woman.”

“But must the child always resemble its parents?” asked Pentaur.  “Among the sons of the sacred bull, sometimes not one bears the distinguishing mark of his father.”

“And if Paaker’s father were indeed an Apis,” Gagabu laughing, “according to your view the pioneer himself belongs, alas! to the peasant’s stable.”

Pentaur did not contradict him, but said with a smile: 

“Since he left the school bench, where his school-fellows called him the wild ass on account of his unruliness, he has remained always the same.  He was stronger than most of them, and yet they knew no greater pleasure than putting him in a rage.”

“Children are so cruel!” said Ameni.  “They judge only by appearances, and never enquire into the causes of them.  The deficient are as guilty in their eyes as the idle, and Paaker could put forward small claims to their indulgence.  I encourage freedom and merriment,” he continued turning to the priests from Cheraw, “among our disciples, for in fettering the fresh enjoyment of youth we lame our best assistant.  The excrescences on the natural growth of boys cannot be more surely or painlessly extirpated than in their wild games.  The school-boy is the school-boy’s best tutor.”

“But Paaker,” said the priest Meriapu, “was not improved by the provocations of his companions.  Constant contests with them increased that roughness which now makes him the terror of his subordinates and alienates all affection.”