Page:The Orient Pearls.djvu/28

12 of sweets, out flew fists, like a swarm of hornets, dealing out hard knocks to everyone present, and there was a general stampede among the guests.

The King, thus humiliated before them, prostrated himself at the feet of the Brahmin, and begged of him to call the fists back into his cup. He did so, and the whole assembly, infuriated at the insult offered them by the King, their host, would have killed him, then and there, but for his profuse apologies for the unfortunate mistake, as he put it, which to some extent pacified them.

For once in a way "virtue" proved something more than "its own reward." The Brahmin was appointed royal chaplain or guru, and lived happily ever after.