"Take off thy wig and show him the sign on thy forehead," said Ramses. "And tell Dagon that I will put marks of the same kind all over his body."
"Listen to that blasphemy!" whispered the collector to his men, drawing back toward the bank with low bows.
He sat down in the boat, and when his assistants had moved off and pushed away some tens of yards, he stretched out his hand and shouted,
"May gripe seize thy intestines, blasphemer, rebel! From here I will go straight to Prince Ramses and tell him what is happening on his lands."
Then he took his cane and belabored his men because they had not taken part with him.
"So it will be with thee!" cried he to Ramses.
The prince sprang into his boat and in a rage commanded the boatman to pursue the insolent servant of the usurer. But he of the sheepskin wig threw down the cane, took an oar himself, and his men helped him so well that pursuit became impossible.
"Sooner could an owl overtake a lark than we overtake them, my beautiful lord," cried the prince's boatman, laughing. "But who art thou? Thou art not a surveyor, but an officer, maybe even an officer of the guard of his holiness. Thou dost strike right always on the forehead! I know about this; I was five years in the army. I always struck on the forehead or the belly, and I had not the worst time in the world. But if any one struck me, I understood right away that he must be a great person. In our Egypt may the gods never leave the land! it is terribly crowded; town is near town, house is near house, man is near man. Whoso wishes to turn in this throng must strike in the forehead."
"Art Thou married?" asked the prince.
"Pfu! when I have a woman and place for a person and a half, I am married; but for the rest of the time I am single. I have been in the army, and I know that a woman is good, though not at all times. She is in the way often."