Page:Tales of Today.djvu/85

Rh must have read the Thousand and One Nights, a collection of Arab tales, translated, more or less faithfully, by good M. Galland, and the name of Scheherazade should be familiar to you?"

"Beautiful Scheherazade, wife of Schahriar, that sultan fruitful in resources who, that he might not be deceived, married a wife overnight and sent her to be bowstrung in the morning? I know her very well."

"Well! I am the Sultana Scheherazade, and this is my good sister Dinarzarde, who has never a single night missed saying to me: 'Sister, if you are not sleeping, tell us, I pray you, before it is day, one of those nice stories that you know.

"Delighted to see you, I am sure, although your visit appears a little singular; but tell me, what is it that procures me the distinguished honor of receiving in my abode, poor poet that I am, the Sultana Scheherazade and her sister Dinarzarde?"

"I have told so many stories that I have reached the end of my repertory; I don't know another single one. I have exhausted the personages of fairy-land; the ghouls, the djinns and the magicians, male and female, have been of great service to me, but nothing lasts forever, not even the impossible. The most glorious sultan, shadow of the padishah, light of lights, sun and moon of the middle empire, is beginning to yawn portentously and trifle ominously with the handle of his ataghan; I told my last story this morning, and my sublime lord has condescended to leave my head upon my shoulders yet for a while. I have made my way hither in all haste, with the assistance of the magic carpet of the four Facardins, to hunt up a tale, a story, a romance; for to-morrow morning, at the accustomed