he shows the ring to the Wazir, who gets hold of
it, rubs it, and on the appearance of the slave of the ring, orders him
to carry off the Cobbler and cast him down in the desert. The Wazir then
orders the King to be treated in the same way, while he himself seizes
the Sultanate, and aspires to marry Ma'aruf's wife, the King's
daughter.

With much interesting detail the story relates how the Princess Dunya
gets the ring into her possession, sends the Wazir to prison, and
rescues her father and her husband from the desert. The Wazir is then
put to death, and the ring is kept by the lady, as she thinks it would
be safer in her keeping than in that of her relations. After this a
son is born, the King dies, Ma'aruf succeeds to the throne, and
shortly after loses his wife, who before her death gives him back the
ring, and urges him to take good care of it for his own sake and for
the sake of his boy.

Time goes on, and the Cobbler's first wife, Fatimah, turns up in town,
brought there also by a Jinn, and tells the story of the want and
suffering she had undergone since his departure from Cairo. Ma'aruf
treats her generously, and sets her up in a palace with a separate
establishment, but the wickedness of the woman reappears, and she
tries to get hold of the ring for her own purposes. Just as she has
secured it she is cut down and killed on the spot by Ma'aruf's son,
who had been watching her proceedings, and is thus finally disposed
of. The King and his son then marry, and live happily in the manner of
Eastern story, all the other characters being properly provided for.

So much for the 'Nights' proper. Other stories translated from the
Breslau text (a Tunisian manuscript acquired, collated and translated
by Professor Habicht, of Breslau, Von der Hagen, and another; 15
volumes, 12mo., Breslau, 1825), the Calcutta fragment of 1814-1818,
and other sources, have been given by Payne in three extra volumes
entitled 'Tales from the Arabic,' and by Burton in two of his six
volumes of the 'Supplemental Nights.' Payne's three books and Burton's
two first volumes follow the same lines. They both contain twenty
principal, and sixty-four subordinate stories, or eighty-four
altogether, divided into nine short stories and seventy-five longer
ones. Some of them are very interesting, and some are amusing,
especially a few of the sixteen Constables' Stories, which describe
the cleverness of women, and the adroitness of thieves, and people