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"Th' idle rich! Small use have they f'r th' wur-r-r-kin' man! Souls no wider than th' black av y'r nail!" "Might have had good reasons," said Bean, cautiously. "Millions av thim," assented Cassidy with a pointed cynicism. "An' me own father dyin' twinty-three years ago fr'm ixposure contracted in County Mayo!" Bean returned the paper to its owner and went slowly in to Ram-tah.
Then he had come to believe himself a king, and straightway had he been kingly. The Corsican, detecting the falsity of some Ram-tah, would have gone on believing in himself none the less. It was all that mattered. "As a man thinketh " If you came down to that, nobody needed a Ram-tah at all.
You impose your tremendous will upon me." He took the chair facing Bean and began swiftly: "I see the path over the desert. I stop beside a temple. Sand is all about. Beneath that temple is a stone sarcophagus. Within it lies the body of King Tam-rah " "Ram-tah!" corrected Bean gently. "Did I not say Ram-tah?" pursued the seer.
It often eluded him as he puzzled a way through the winding gray-walled streets. More than once he was forced to turn back, to make laborious circuits. But never for long was the cross out of sight. Constantly as he walked that new truth ran in his mind, molten, luminous. Who knew of Ram-tah's fictive origin, or even of Ram-tah at all? No one but a witty scoundrel calling himself Balthasar.
The Great Reorganizer knew it not, but he no longer looked at Bunker Bean. Instead, he was trying to shrivel with his glare a veritable king of old Egypt who had enjoyed the power of life and death over his remotest subject. Bean did not shrivel. Breede glared his deadliest only a moment. He felt the sway of the great Ram-tah without identifying it.
Your personal bravery is unquestioned, you are an adept in all manly sports, but you will not go to war as you very properly detest all violence. For this reason there is little to relate of your reign. It was uneventful and distinguished only by your wise and humane statesmanship " "What name?" asked Bean, in low, reverent tones. "The name er the name is oh, yes, I get it the name is Ram-tah."
Ram-tah would almost open his eyes at the novelty of that progress. But he felt that this was no safe thing to do. He would be arrested. The whole secret might come out. He had retained no sense of direction, but he was presently conscious of the river close at his side, and then the car, with warning blasts, curved up to a much lighted building and halted.
Perhaps the face had changed but little during the centuries. He, Bunker Bean, lay there in royal robes, hands folded upon his breast, as lamenting subjects had left him. And what did it mean to him now? He thought he saw. As King Ram-tah he had been too peaceful. For all his stern and kingly bearing might he not have been a little timid afraid of people now and then?
He was conscious of a willingness to consider it himself, as a friend of the family and a well-wisher of Chubbins. He was back in the apartment and in the presence of a document that swept his mind of all Breedes. Never had he in fancy ceased to be king Ram-tah, cheated of historic mention because of his wisdom and goodness.
He looked over to Nap, who fiercely battled with a sofa cushion, and was now disembowelling it through a rent in the cover. He wondered what Ram-tah's favourite dog had been like. He went back to the bedroom to finish his packing. Ram-tah could lie until the moment came to lock him again in the closet, to leave him once more in a seclusion to which he had long been accustomed.
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