Joseph made for his father Jacob. Joseph did not say: "I can't have
the old man around this place. How clumsy he would look climbing up
these marble stairs, and walking over these mosaics! Then, he would be
putting his hands upon some of these frescoes. People would wonder
where that old greenhorn came from. He would shock all the Egyptian
court with his manners at table. Besides that, he might get sick on my
hands, and he might be querulous, and he might talk to me as though I
were only a boy, when I am the second man in all the realm. Of course,
he must not suffer, and if there is famine in his country--and I hear
there is--I will send him some provisions; but I can't take a man from
Padan-aram and introduce him into this polite Egyptian court. What a
nuisance it is to have