Finally, beautiful women announced themselves, the mothers of stately daughters begging the heir humbly but insistently to receive them into his mansion. Some indicated the amount of the pension demanded, praising their virginity and their talents. After ten days of looking every moment at new persons and faces, and hearing petitions which only the possession of a world and divine power to dispense it could satisfy, Prince Rameses was exhausted. He could not sleep; he was so excited that the buzz of a fly pained his nerves, and at moments he did not understand what people said when they talked to him. In this position Herhor came again to assist the viceroy. He commanded to inform the wealthy that the prince would not receive any more persons on questions of interest; and against common people, who, in spite of repeated invitations to disperse, were still waiting, he sent a company of Numidians with clubs. These succeeded with incomparably more ease than Rameses in meeting popular wishes, for before an hour had passed the petitioners had vanished from the square, like mist, while one and another of them for a couple of succeeding days poured water on their heads, or other bruised parts of their bodies. After this trial of supreme power the prince felt profound contempt for men and became apathetic. He lay two days on a couch with his hands beneath his head gazing vacantly at the ceiling. He did not wonder that his sacred father passed his time at the altars of the gods, but he could not understand how Herhor was able to manage the avalanche of business, which, like a storm, not only surpassed the strength of a man, but might even crush him. "How carry out plans in this case when a throng of petitions fetter our will, devour our thoughts, drink our blood? At the end of ten days I am sick, at the end of a year I should be an idiot. In this office it is impossible to carry out any plan; a man can just defend himself from madness." He was so alarmed by his weakness in the position of ruler that he summoned Herhor, and with a complaining voice told of his suffering. The statesman listened with a smile to the complaints of the young steersman of the ship of state, and at last said in answer,-- "Knowest thou, lord, that this immense palace in which we dwell was reared by one architect, named Senebi, who moreover died before it was finished? And to a certainty thou wilt understand how this famous architect could carry out his plan without weariness and be always in a cheerful temper." "I am curious." "Well, he did not do everything himself; he did not hew the beams or cut the stones, he did not make the bricks, he did not carry them to the scaffolding. He did not lay them into the wall and fasten them together. He only drew the plan, and moreover he had assistants. But thou, prince, hadst the wish to do all things thyself, to listen in person and transact every business. That goes beyond human strength."