out of the deep sea and ate it up in three mouthfuls. Suleiman-bin-Daoud
was very surprised and said, 'O Animal, who are you?' And the Animal
said, 'O King, live for ever! I am the smallest of thirty thousand
brothers, and our home is at the bottom of the sea. We heard that you
were going to feed all the animals in all the world, and my brothers
sent me to ask when dinner would be ready.' Suleiman-bin-Daoud was more
surprised than ever and said, 'O Animal, you have eaten all the dinner
that I made ready for all the animals in the world.' And the Animal
said, 'O King, live for ever, but do you really call that a dinner?
Where I come from we each eat twice as much as that between meals.' Then
Suleiman-bin-Daoud fell flat on his face and said, 'O Animal! I gave
that dinner to show what a great and rich king I was, and not because I
really wanted to be kind to the animals. Now I am ashamed, and it serves
me right. Suleiman-bin-Daoud was a really truly wise man, Best Beloved.
After that he never forgot that it was silly to show off; and now the
real story part of my story begins.

He married ever so many wifes. He married nine hundred and ninety-nine
wives, besides the Most Beautiful Balkis; and they all lived in a great
golden palace in the middle of a lovely garden with fountains. He
didn't really want nine-hundred and ninety-nine wives, but in those
days everybody married ever so many wives, and of course the King had to
marry ever so many more just to show that he was the King.

Some of the wives were nice, but some were simply horrid, and the horrid
ones quarrelled with the nice ones and made them horrid too, and then
they would all quarrel with Suleiman-bin-Daoud, and that was horrid
for him. But Balkis the Most Beautiful never quarrelled with
Suleiman-bin-Daoud. She loved him too much. She sat in her rooms in the
Golden Palace, or walked in the Palace garden, and was truly sorry for
him.

Of course if he had chosen to turn his ring on his finger and call
up the Djinns and the Afrits they would have magicked all those nine
hundred and ninety-nine quarrelsome wives into white mules of the desert
or greyhounds or pomegranate seeds; but Suleiman-bin-Daoud thought that
that would be showing off. So, when they quarrelled too much, he only
walked by himself in one part of the beautiful Palace gardens and wished
he had never been born.

One day, when they had quarrelled for three weeks--all nine hundred and
ninety-nine wi