"If you like I will drive away the mice too and draw the snakes out of their holes better than the priests." [Recipes for exterminating noxious creatures are found in the papyrus in my possession.] "Keep your magic to yourself," said a girl in a husky voice.

"Since you muttered your words over me, and gave me that drink to make me grow slight and lissom again, I have been shaken to pieces with a cough at night, and turn faint when I am dancing." "But look how slender you have grown," answered Hekt, "and your cough will soon be well." "When I am dead," whispered the girl to the old woman.

"I know that most of us end so." The witch shrugged her shoulders, and perceiving the dwarf she rose from her seat.
The girls too noticed the little man, and set up the indescribable cry, something like the cackle of hens, which is peculiar to Eastern women when something tickles their fancy.

Nemu was well known to them, for his mother always stayed in their tent whenever she came to Thebes, and the gayest of them cried out: "You are grown, little man, since the last time you were here." "So are you," said the dwarf sharply; "but only as far as big words are concerned." "And you are as wicked as you are small," retorted the girl.
"Then my wickedness is small too," said the dwarf laughing, "for I am little enough! Good morning, girls--may Besa help your beauty.

Good day, mother--you sent for me ?" The old woman nodded; the dwarf perched himself on the chest beside her, and they began to whisper together.
"How dusty and tired you are," said Hekt.