Still I could come no nearer to the Prince, and as my store of money was beginning to run low, I bethought me that I would return to Memphis.
One day, however, a long-bearded old man, with a gold-tipped wand of office, who had a bull's head embroidered on his robe, stopped in front of me and, calling me a white-headed crow, asked me what I was doing hopping day by day about the chambers of the palace.

I told him my name and business and he told me his, which it seemed was Pambasa, one of the Prince's chamberlains.

When I asked him to take me to the Prince, he laughed in my face and said darkly that the road to his Highness's presence was paved with gold.

I understood what he meant and gave him a gift which he took as readily as a cock picks corn, saying that he would speak of me to his master and that I must come back again.
I came thrice and each time that old cock picked more corn.

At last I grew enraged and, forgetting where I was, began to shout at him and call him a thief, so that folks gathered round to listen.