"During the verification two laborers stole a measure of grain and hid it among bricks. When this was proven they were brought to judgment and sent to the quarries for raising their hands to the property of his holiness."
"But the hundred and forty-eight measures?" asked the heir.
"The mice ate them," replied the scribe, and read on.
"On the eighth day of Thoth twenty cows and eighty-four sheep were sent to the slaughter; these, at command of the overseer of oxen, were issued to the Sparrow-Hawk regiment."
In this manner the viceroy learned day after day how much wheat, barley, beans, and lotus seed were weighed into the granaries, how much given out to the mills, how much stolen, and how many laborers were condemned to the quarries for stealing. The report was so wearisome and chaotic that in the middle of the month Paophi the prince gave command to stop reading.
"Tell me, chief scribe," said Ramses, "what dost Thou understand from this? What dost Thou learn from it?"
"Everything which thy worthiness commands."
And he began again at the beginning, but from memory,
"On the fifth of the month Thoth they brought to the granaries of the pharaoh."
"Enough!" cried the enraged prince; and he commanded the man to depart.