Page:The Children's Plutarch, Greeks.djvu/114

 have been taught many useful lessons, and I believe it would interest you to hear him. Shall I send for him to come and see you? He is a philosopher of whom all the world has heard. I mean Plato" (Play-to).

"Send for him, if you will," answered the king.

Plato agreed to visit the city of Syracuse, and made the voyage in a galley across the Mediterranean Sea. The king received him in his marble palace, and Plato lectured to a richly-dressed company. He spoke of the manner in which men should labor, whether kings or working folk. And at the end of his lecture he said:

"Thus we see, O king, that they who act justly have peace in their hearts, but they who act unjustly are unhappy."

"Good! quite true," cried some of the audience (that is, the people listening).

"I do not admire your teaching," said the king. "What is the use of such talk? Why did you come to Sicily?"

"To find an honest man," replied Plato.

"I suppose you think you have come for nothing, then?" sneered the king.

Not long afterward word was sent to Plato that the tyrant no longer desired his presence on the island, and that it would be well for him to return to Athens. A ship's captain—a Spartan sailor—approached Plato, and said he had the royal orders