"I notice it in the palm-trees," said the gardener, "you want so many cudgels that their crowns will soon be as bare as a moulting bird."
"We should do as the master does," said the head-groom, "and get sticks of ebony--they last a hundred years."
"At any rate longer than men's bones," laughed the chief neat-herd, who had come in to town from the pioneer's country estate, bringing with him animals for sacrifices, butter and cheese. "If we were all to follow the master's example, we should soon have none but cripples in the servant's house."
"Out there lies the lad whose collar-bone he broke yesterday," said the steward, "it is a pity, for he was a clever mat-platter. The old lord hit softer."
"You ought to know!" cried a small voice, that sounded mockingly behind the feasters.
They looked and laughed when they recognized the strange guest, who had approached them unobserved.
The new comer was a deformed little man about as big as a five-year-old boy, with a big head and oldish but uncommonly sharply-cut features.
The noblest Egyptians kept house-dwarfs for sport, and this little wight served the wife of Mena in this capacity. He was called Nemu, or "the dwarf," and his sharp tongue made him much feared, though he was a favorite, for he passed for a very clever fellow and was a good tale-teller.
"Make room for me, my lords," said the little man. "I take very little room, and your beer and roast is in little danger from me, for my maw is no bigger than a fly's head."
"But your gall is as big as that of a Nile-horse," cried the cook.
"It grows," said the dwarf laughing, "when a turn-spit and spoon-wielder like you turns up. There--I will sit here."
"You are welcome," said the steward, "what do you bring?"
"Myself."
"Then you bring nothing great."
"Else I should not suit you either!" retorted the dwarf. "But seriously, my lady mother, the noble Katuti, and the Regent, who just now is visiting us, sent me here to ask you whether Paaker is not yet returned. He accompanied the princess and Nefert to the City of the Dead, and the ladies are not yet come in. We begin to be anxious, for it is already late."
The steward looked up at the starry sky and said: "The moon is already tolerably high, and my lord meant to be home before sun-down."