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 vain. I have fallen in love with the three Oranges, and never shall I be better till I find them."

"Oh, my dear little son!" groaned the Padishah, "thou art all that I have in the wide world: if thou dost leave me, in whom can I rejoice?" Then the King's son slowly withered away, and his days were as a heavy sleep; so his father saw that it would be better to let him go forth on his way and find, if so be he might, the three Oranges that were as the balsam of his soul. "Perchance too he may return again," thought the Padishah.

So the King's son arose one day and took with him things that were light to carry, but heavy in the scales of value, and pursued his way over mountains and valleys, rising up and lying down again for many days. At last in the midst of a vast plain, in front of the high-road, he came upon her Satanic Majesty the Mother of Devils, as huge as a minaret. One of her legs was on one mountain, and the other leg on another mountain; she was chewing gum (her mouth was full of it) so that you could hear her half-an-hour's journey off; her breath was a hurricane, and her arms were yards and yards long.

"Good-day, little mother!" cried the youth, and he embraced the broad waist of the Mother of Devils. "Good-day, little sonny!" she replied. "If thou hadst not spoken to me so politely, I should have