Genre Fiction. Page - 240

By W. A. Clouston.

The Tale of Zayn Al-AsnamAlaeddin; or, The Wonderful LampKhudadad and His BrothersThe Story of the Blind Man, Baba AbdullahHistory of Sisi Nu'umanHistory of Khwajah Hasan Al-HabbalAli Baba and the Forty ThievesAli Khwajah and the Merchant of BaghdadPrince Ahmad and the Fairy Peri-BanuThe Two Sisters Who Envied Their Cadette

Additional Notes:--

The Tale of Zayn Al-AsnamAlaeddin; or, The Wonderful LampAli Baba and the Forty ThievesPrince Ahmad and the Fairy Peri-Banu

The Translator's Foreword.

The peculiar proceedings of the Curators, Bodleian Library, 1Oxford, of which full particulars shall be given in due time,have dislocated the order of my volumes. The Prospectus hadpromised that Tome III. should contain detached extracts from theMS. known as the Wortley-Montague, and that No. IV. and part ofNo. V. should comprise a reproduction of the ten Tales (oreleven, including "The Princess of Daryß

paper clip out of his pocket and opens it out, and I think maybe he has a penknife, too, and next thing I know the padlock is open.

"Gee, how'd you do that?"

"Sh-h-h. A guy showed me how. You better get your cat and scram."

Golly, I wonder, maybe the guy is a burglar, and that gives me another creepy feeling. But would a burglar be taking time out to get a kid's cat free?

"Well, thanks for the cat. See you around," I say.

"Sh-h-h. I don't live around here. Hurry up, before we both get caught."

Maybe he's a real burglar with a gun, even, I think, and by the time I dodge past the elevators and get out in the cold April wind, the sweat down my back is freezing. I give Cat a long lecture on staying out of basements. After all, I can't count on having a burglar handy to get him out every time.

Back home we put some nice jailhouse blues on the record player, and we both stretch out on the bed to think. The guy didn't really look like a burglar. And he didn't

pparently you don't know the way to the stairs," returned the other a trifle tartly. Looking at his keen, pallid and deeply lined face, the young doctor set him down as a rather irritable fellow, and suspected dyspepsia. "Everybody will be going to the beach," he added. "If you follow along you'll probably get there."

"Thanks," said Dick undisturbedly. It was a principle of his that the ill-temper of others was no logical reason for ill-temper in himself. In this case his principle worked well, for Haynes said with tolerable civility:

"You just came in this evening, didn't you?"

"Yes. I seem to have met the market for excitement."

By this time they had reached the large living-room, where they found Mrs. Johnston presiding with ill-directed advice over the struggles of her grey-bearded husband to insert himself into a pair of boots of insufficient calibre.

"Twenty-five years of service in the life-savin' corps an' ain't let to go out now without these der-r-r-ratted contrapt

e of the road. But the second hind, having heard my name, loosed from the tiring-maid, and ran for his life; and, indeed, my strength was known all about that part.

And I caught Mirdath the Beautiful by her shoulders, and shook her very soundly, in my anger. And afterward, I sent the maid onward; and she, having no word from her Mistress to stay, went forward a little; and in this fashion we came at last to the hedge-gap, with the Lady Mirdath very hushed; but yet walking anigh to me, as that she had some secret pleasure of my nearness. And I led her through the gap, and so homeward to the Hall; and there bid her good-night at a side door that she held the key of. And, truly, she bid me good-night in an utter quiet voice; and was almost as that she had no haste to be gone from me that night.

Yet, when I met her on the morrow, she was full of a constant impudence to me; so that, having her alone to myself, when the dusk was come, I asked her why she would never be done of her waywardness; because

and, illogically enough, his presence in the street gave Mrs. Drabdump a curious sense of security, as of a believer living under the shadow of the fane. That any human being of ill-odor should consciously come within a mile of the scent of so famous a sleuth-hound seemed to her highly improbable. Grodman had retired (with a competence) and was only a sleeping dog now; still, even criminals would have sense enough to let him lie.

So Mrs. Drabdump did not really feel that there had been any danger, especially as a second glance at the street door showed that Mortlake had been thoughtful enough to slip the loop that held back the bolt of the big lock. She allowed herself another throb of sympathy for the labor leader whirling on his dreary way toward Devonport Dockyard. Not that he had told her anything of his journey beyond the town; but she knew Devonport had a Dockyard because Jessie Dymond--Tom's sweetheart--once mentioned that her aunt lived near there, and it lay on the surface that Tom had gone t

hose of LutheranPastors. Put all this together and say if the human race hasever presented a more unlovely aspect. When we try to find thebrighter spots they are chiefly where civilisation, as apartfrom religion, has built up necessities for the community, suchas hospitals, universities, and organised charities, asconspicuous in Buddhist Japan as in Christian Europe. We cannotdeny that there has been much virtue, much gentleness, muchspirituality in individuals. But the churches were empty husks,which contained no spiritual food for the human race, and had inthe main ceased to influence its actions, save in the directionof soulless forms.This is not an over-coloured picture. Can we not see, then,what was the inner reason for the war? Can we not understandthat it was needful to shake mankind loose from gossip and pinkteas, and sword-worship, and Saturday night drunks, and self-seeking politics and theological quibbles--to wake them up andmake them realise that they stand upon a narro

"Hush up!" said a deep, growling voice. "You're making yourself ridiculous."

Everyone looked to see where this voice came from; but none could guess who had uttered the words of rebuke. The rowers of the boat were all solemn and silent and certainly no one on the shore had spoken. But the little man did not seem astonished in the least, or even annoyed.

King Kitticut now addressed the stranger, saying courteously:

"You are welcome to the Kingdom of Pingaree. Perhaps you will deign to come ashore and at your convenience inform us whom we have the honor of receiving as a guest."

"Thanks; I will," returned the little fat man, waddling from his place in the boat and stepping, with some difficulty, upon the sandy beach. "I am King Rinkitink, of the City of Gilgad in the Kingdom of Rinkitink, and I have come to Pingaree to see for myself the monarch who sends to my city so many beautiful pearls. I have long wished to visit this island; and so, as I said before, here I am!"

too, my lady, afore Aaron, who now lies with the worms, laid me out with a flat-iron. Men's fit for jails only, as I allays says."

"A nice opinion you have of our sex," remarked Archie dryly.

"I have, sir. I could tell you things as would make your head waggle with horror on there shoulders of yours."

"What about your son Sidney? Is he also wicked?"

"He would be if he had the strength, which he hasn't," exclaimed the widow with uncomplimentary fervor. "He's Aaron's son, and Aaron hadn't much to learn from them as is where he's gone too," and she looked downward significantly.

"Sidney is a decent young fellow," said Lucy sharply. "How dare you miscall your own flesh and blood, Widow Anne? My father thinks a great deal of Sidney, else he would not have sent him to Malta. Do try and be cheerful, there's a good soul. Sidney will tell you plenty to make you laugh, when he comes home."

"If he ever does come home," sighed the old woman.

"What do you mean by that?"

only two things in the window that interested him at all, and they were not both temptations. One was an old rosewood camera, and Pocket was interested in cameras old and new; but the thing that tempted him was a little revolver at five-and-six, with what looked like a box of cartridges beside it, apparently thrown in for the price. A revolver to take back to school! A revolver to fire in picked places on the slow walks with a slow companion which were all the exercise this unfortunate fellow could take! A revolver and cartridges complete, so that one could try it now, in no time, with Guy and Vivian at the end of their garden in St. John's Wood Park! And all very likely for five bob if one bargained a bit!

Pocket took out his purse and saw what a hole the expenditure of any such sum would make. But what was that if it filled a gap in his life? Of coure it would have been breaking a school rule, but he was prepared to take the consequences if found out; it need not involve his notion of dishonour. Stil

ous mistake," he said. "I must try and set it right.Yet I don't know how to set about it either. I was going down to thevillage from the Vicarage just after dusk when I found a fellow in atrap who had got himself into broken water. One wheel had sunk into theedge of the ditch which had been hidden by the snow, and the whole thingwas high and dry, with a list to starboard enough to slide him out ofhis seat. I lent a hand, of course, and soon had the wheel in the roadagain. It was quite dark, and I fancy that the fellow thought that Iwas a bumpkin, for we did not exchange five words. As he drove off heshoved this into my hand. It is the merest chance that I did not chuckit away, for, feeling that it was a crumpled piece of paper, I imaginedthat it must be a tradesman's advertisement or something of the kind.However, as luck would have it, I put it in my pocket, and there I foundit when I looked for the dates of our cruise. Now you know as much ofthe matter as I do."

Brother and sister s