rationed, after showing the perfection of our skill, with a dish
of roast meat and two scones of bread; whereby I knew thee to be
of cook's breed, for the Kings be wont in such case to make
presents of money and valuables, not of meat and bread as thou
didst, and this evidenced thee to be a bastard King." He replied,
"Sooth thou sayest," and then robed him with the rest of his
robes including the Kalansuwah or royal head-dress under the
hood[FN#49] and seated him upon the throne of his estate.--And
Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent and
ceased to say her permitted say. Then quoth her sister Dunyazad,
"How sweet is thy story, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and
delectable!" Quoth she, "And where is this compared with that I
would relate to you on the coming night, an the Sovran suffer me
to survive." Now when it was the next night and that was

The Three Hundred and Forty-second Night,

Dunyazad said to her, "Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be
other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short
the watching of this our latter night!" She replied, "With love
and good will!" It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the
director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting
and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the Sultan
enthroned the Sharper upon the throne of estate and went forth
from him after abandoning all his women to him and assumed the
garb of a Darwaysh who wandereth about the world and formally
abdicated his dominion to his successor. But when the Sharper-
king saw himself in this condition, he reflected and said to
himself, "Summon thy whilome comrades and see whether they
recognize thee or not." So he caused them be set before him and