Page:Stories after Nature.pdf/88

64 trive some means by which to raise the treasure, so that it might be restored. But in those days, this was a matter of fiction, and considered to be so unaccountable an undertaking, that all, thinking it not to be practicable without the aid of magic, declined it.

Now Philippo had just been reproved by his friends, and called an idle fellow, as well as unfeeling, for still wasting, by his daily hunger, the slender means of his old father; and, with a heart bitter against fate and man, and full of pain, he heard of this reward. He went into the slip of garden at the back of the house, and thought deeply of the matter; and sent at once to the king, saying he would undertake it, and be ready in seven days to try the effects of his invention. He fagged night and day at it, and was prepared at the time. But his friends laughed at him, and counselled him, part out of envy, lest he even might succeed; some out of meanness, that a youth of his estate should attempt strong matters, out of his sphere; and many, from a secret vanity and petty love of power, at being able to bestow their self-soothing advice upon one already out of favor with every body; and with the irritable desire of making him discontented with himself (like true worldly friends). And all because they forgot