"Once Argus was told to watch a certain prisoner who could not be shut in a room, but had to be left in a field. Not once was he to lose sight of this prisoner. If he did, every one of his hundred eyes would be taken from him.
"Day and night Argus watched, never sleeping except with two eyes at a time. He was as faithful as fifty soldiers.
"But he loved music, and the friends of the prisoner knew it. So they sent some one to him who could play upon the harp and sing, thinking that perhaps Argus might be charmed to sleep.
"This player's name was Mercury, and he was so quick that some thought he wore wings on his feet. If he did wear them, he could take them off when he liked, for he was just a plain shepherd in a sheepskin coat and sheepskin sandals when Argus saw him.
"If he had come with a spear, or with bow and arrow, Argus would have been ready to keep him out, but Mercury was too bright for that.
"No, he was just a plain shepherd, and he sat down in a field near the one Argus was in, to watch his sheep. While he sat there, he played such sweet music that Argus said, 'Bring your sheep into my field and we will watch together.'
"That was just what Mercury had planned. So he was not very long in getting his sheep into the field with Argus. There the two lay in the shade of the trees and told stories, and Mercury played and watched the green eyes of Argus, while Argus watched the prisoner.
"One night Mercury played so softly, so sweetly, that for one minute every one of the hundred green eyes of Argus closed, the watchman nodded, and in that minute Mercury struck him on the neck and cut off his head. Then the prisoner was free. Juno took the green eyes of Argus and put them on her pet bird, the peacock."
"Oh, Jack, I don't believe a word of it."
"I don't, either," said Jack, "but these stories are both more than two thousand years old, and I shouldn't wonder if some one did believe them a long time ago."