gotten."

"Ask what thou wilt," said the Genie, "for I must ever obey whomsoever
hast the ring that thou wearest upon thy finger. Hath my lord nothing to
command wherein I may serve him?"

Abdallah shook his head. "No," said he, "there is
nothing--unless--unless you will bring me something to eat."

"To hear is to obey," said the Genie. "What will my lord be pleased to
have?"

"Just a little bread and cheese," said Abdallah.

The Genie waved his hand, and in an instant a fine damask napkin lay
spread upon the ground, and upon it a loaf of bread as white as snow and
a piece of cheese such as the king would have been glad to taste. But
Abdallah could do nothing but sit staring at the Genie, for the sight of
the monster quite took away his appetite.

"What more can I do to serve thee?" asked the Genie.

"I think," said Abdallah, "that I could eat more comfortably if you were
away."

"To hear is to obey," said the Genie. "Whither shall I go? Shall I enter
the casket again?"

"I do not know," said the fagot-maker; "how did you come to be there?"

"I am a great Genie," answered the monster, "and was conjured thither
by the great King Solomon, whose seal it is that thou wearest upon thy
finger. For a certain fault that I committed I was confined in the box
and hidden in the cavern where thou didst find me to-day. There I lay
for thousands of years until one day three old magicians discovered
the secret of where I lay hidden. It was they who only this morning
compelled me to give them that vast treasure which thou sawest them take
away from the cavern not long since."

"But why did they not take you and the box and the ring away also?"
asked Abdallah.

"Because," answered the Genie, "they are three brothers, and neither two
care to trust the other one with such power as the ring has to give, so
they made a solemn compact among themselves that I should remain in the
cavern, and that no one of the three should visit it without the other
two in his company. Now, my lord, if it is thy will that I shall enter
the casket again I must even obey thy command in that as in all things;
but, if it please thee, I would fain rejoin my own kind again--they from
whom I have been parted for so long. Shouldst thou permit me to do so
I will still be thy slave, for thou hast only to press the red stone in
the ring and repeat these words: By the red Aldebaran, I command thee
to come,' and I will be with thee instantly. But if I have