"Mercurius was a celebrated god of antiquity, called Hermes by the Greeks. He was the messenger of the gods and of Jupiter in particular. He was the god of speech, of eloquence, the patron of orators, of merchants, and of all dishonest persons, particularly thieves, of travellers, and of shepherds. He also presided over highways and crossways, and conducted the souls of the dead to the world below, and it would be nearly impossible to discover anything about which this versatile god could not be consulted through his learned priests, who had been taught the gift of speech from him that they transmitted to their followers. The Egyptians ascribed to Hermes the invention of letters, and the Greeks accredited him with many other important improvements that made men's lives happier or better, such as the invention of the lyre, as well as the regulation of commerce, and the improvement of gymnastic exercises, while, by a strange perversion the Greeks made Hermes the protector of thieves, when, in Egypt, he was the god of merchants, so that it may be possible that the crafty god favoured the person who first propitiated him or, perhaps, the highest bidder." Mercury was the son of Jupiter by the brightest of the Pleiades, Maia, herself the daughter of Atlas, King of Mauritania, and Pleione, one of the Oceanides, or ocean nymphs whose mother was Tethys, and father, Oceanus. Such distinguished ancestry may well have placed the ever-youthful Mercury among the presiding deities of Olympus, even if he had not inherited the mantle of the Egyptian god Thoth, and with it the ægis of the god of the Babylonians, Nebo, who was the arbiter of the fate of mankind. His infancy was intrusted to the Seasons, who could not prevent his stealing the trident of Neptune, the girdle of Venus, the sword of Mars, and the sceptre of Jupiter, all of which are displayed on the old pip cards, the sword and sceptre being two of the pips, while the girdle of Venus encircles the Deuce of Money.