Old Hekt has often sent me to the gardener with a message to enquire after his son, and though the man is rough he is kind.

At first he was not friendly, but when he saw how much I liked his flowers he grew fond of me, and set me to work to tie wreaths and bunches, and to carry them to his customers.

As we sat together, laying the flowers side by side, he constantly told me something about his son, and his beauty and goodness and wisdom.

When he was quite a little boy he could write poems, and he learned to read before any one had shown him how.

The high-priest Ameni heard of it and took him to the House of Seti, and there he improved, to the astonishment of the gardener; not long ago I went through the garden with the old man.