? it
shall be even given thee to the half of the kingdom."

"If it seem good unto the king," said Esther, "let the king and Haman
come this day unto the banquet that I have prepared for him."

So the king commanded Haman, and they came to the queen's banquet. The
king knew that Esther had a favor to ask of him, so he said again:

"What is thy petition? and it shall be granted thee; and what is thy
request? even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed."

But Esther was wise. She begged as her petition and request that the
king and Haman would come to the banquet she should prepare the next
day also, and she would then do as the king had said.

Haman went home very happy and proud that he had been so honored by the
queen, and told his wife and his friends of all the glory and honor
that had come to him.

"Yet all this availeth me nothing," he said, "so long as I see Mordecai
the Jew sitting at the king's gate."

Then his wife and his friends urged him to build a high gallows and ask
the king on the next day to hang Mordecai upon it. "Then go thou
merrily with the king unto the banquet," they added.

This pleased Haman, and he ordered the gallows to be made.

That night the king was restless, and he could not sleep, and he
commanded that the book of records be brought and read aloud to him.
Then he found that it was written that Mordecai had saved the king's
life when it was threatened by his two chamberlains.

"What honor and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this?" he asked,
and his servants replied:

"There is nothing done for him."

"Who is in the court?" cried the king. Now Haman had come in to speak
to the king to have Mordecai hanged.

"Haman standeth in the court," said the king's servants, and the king
said,

"Let him come in."

As Haman came in the king said,

"What shall be done to the man that the king delighteth to honor?"

Haman thought in his heart, "To whom would the king delight to do honor
more than to myself," and then he replied, thinking all the time of
himself.

"For the man whom the king delighteth to honor let the royal apparel be
brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king
rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head, and let
this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's
most noble princes, that they may array the men withal whom the king
delighteth to honor, and bring him on horseback through the s