SWIFT AND OLD-GOLD 



FIRST HEAT — THE WEDDING PRESENTS 



I COULD never quite understand why old King 

 Peleus of the little city of Phthia in Thessaly 

 should have been so great a favorite of the gods. 

 But, say what we will, he knew some things that 

 were well worth knowing. For instance, he 

 knew that the best way to govern men was to 

 give them plenty of work to do; and hence his 

 people of Phthia were such busy bodies that they 

 were everywhere called Myrmidons, which in 

 plain English means Ants. Indeed, an absurd 

 story was told that when Peleus first came into 

 that part of the country there was no city there, 

 and not a sign of human beings, not even a wild 

 man in the woods — nothing but a great ant-hill 

 with its thousands of six-legged workers toiling 

 and fuming and laying up their stores of winter 

 food. But while the young outlaw — for Peleus 

 was only such — sat footsore and hungry on the 



green turf and watched these wise creatures, how 

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