Page:Lucian (IA lucianlucas00collrich).pdf/164

154 just as I am now, and reading Plato on the immortality of the soul"—and frightened him terribly. She had missed an article of her wardrobe—one of a pair of golden slippers to which she was particularly attached, and there was no rest for her perturbed spirit without it. Happily the slipper was found next morning in the very place which the lady had indicated, behind a chest, and was duly burned; and both husband and household had peace afterwards.

Eucrates had another story to tell also, of something which had happened to himself—a story with which we are tolerably familiar in more than one modern form, but which it may be amusing to read here in an older version. The narrator had the good fortune, on a voyage up the Nile, to make the acquaintance of a certain Pancrates, one of the holy scribes of Memphis, who had learnt magic from the goddess Isis herself. They became so intimate that they agreed to continue their travels together, Pancrates assuring his friend that they should have no need of servants.

"When we got to an inn, this remarkable man would take the bar of the door, or a broom, or a pestle, put some clothes on it, mutter a charm over it, and make it walk, looking to every one else's eyes for all the world like a man: it would go and draw water, fetch provisions and set them out, and make an excellent servant and waiter in all respects. Then, when its office was done to our contentment, he would mutter a counter-charm, and make the broom become a