ears.

The next moment there came another sound--a sound like thunder--above
and below and everywhere. The earth began to shake and to rock, and the
houses began to topple and fall, and the people began to scream and to
yell and to shout, and the waters of the sea began to lash and to roar,
and the wind began to bellow and howl. Then it was a good thing for King
Selim that he wore Luck's Ring; for, though all the beautiful snow-white
palace about him and above him began to crumble to pieces like slaked
lime, the sticks and the stones and the beams to fall this side of him
and that, he crawled out from under it without a scratch or a bruise,
like a rat out of a cellar.

That is what Luck's Ring did for him.

But his troubles were not over yet; for, just as he came out from under
all the ruin, the island began to sink down into the water, carrying
everything along with it--that is, everything but him and one thing
else. That one other thing was an empty boat, and King Selim climbed
into it, and nothing else saved him from drowning. It was Luck's Ring
that did that for him also.

The boat floated on and on until it came to another island that was just
like the island he had left, only that there was neither tree nor blade
of grass nor hide nor hair nor living thing of any kind. Nevertheless,
it was an island just like the other: a high mountain and nothing else.
There Selim the Baker went ashore, and there he would have starved to
death only for Luck's Ring; for one day a boat came sailing by, and when
poor Selim shouted, those aboard heard him and came and took him off.
How they all stared to see his golden crown--for he still wore it--and
his robes of silk and satin and the gold and jewels!

Before they would consent to carry him away, they made him give up all
the fine things he had. Then they took him home again to the town whence
he had first come, just as poor as when he had started. Back he went to
his bake-shop and his ovens, and the first thing he did was to take off
his gold ring and put it on the shelf.

"If that is the ring of good luck," said he, "I do not want to wear the
like of it."

That is the way with mortal man: for one has to have the Ring of Wisdom
as well, to turn the Ring of Luck to good account.

And now for Selim the Fisherman.

Well, thus it happened to him. For a while he carried the iron ring
around in his pocket--just as so many of us do--without thinking to put
it on. But one day h