ous), she deputes her father, the grand
vizier, to make an offer to the king of her hand. This hand the king
eagerly accepts--(he had intended to take it at all events, and had put
off the matter from day to day, only through fear of the vizier),--but,
in accepting it now, he gives all parties very distinctly to understand,
that, grand vizier or no grand vizier, he has not the slightest design
of giving up one iota of his vow or of his privileges. When, therefore,
the fair Scheherazade insisted upon marrying the king, and did actually
marry him despite her father's excellent advice not to do any thing of
the kind--when she would and did marry him, I say, will I, nill I, it
was with her beautiful black eyes as thoroughly open as the nature of
the case would allow.

It seems, however, that this politic damsel (who had been reading
Machiavelli, beyond doubt), had a very ingenious little plot in her
mind. On the night of the wedding, she contrived, upon I forget what
specious pretence, to have her sister occupy a couch sufficiently near
that of the royal pair to admit of easy conversation from bed to bed;
and, a little before cock-crowing, she took care to awaken the good
monarch, her husband (who bore her none the worse will because he
intended to wring her neck on the morrow),--she managed to awaken him, I
say, (although on account of a capital conscience and an easy digestion,
he slept well) by the profound interest of a story (about a rat and a
black cat, I think) which she was narrating (all in an undertone, of
course) to her sister. When the day broke, it so happened that this
history was not altogether finished, and that Scheherazade, in the
nature of things could not finish it just then, since it was high time
for her to get up and be bowstrung--a thing very little more pleasant
than hanging, only a trifle more genteel.

The king's curiosity, however, prevailing, I am sorry to say, even over
his sound religious principles, induced him for this once to postpone
the fulfilment of his vow until next morning, for the purpose and with
the hope of hearing that night how it fared in the end with the black
cat (a black cat, I think it was) and the rat.

The night having arrived, however, the lady Scheherazade not only put
the finishing stroke to the black cat and the rat (the rat was blue)
but before she well knew what she was about, found herself deep in the
intricacies of a narration, having reference (if I am not altog