riddling answers, which completely foil him, and tor the solution of which
he is compelled to have recourse to the proposer. He departs, however, in
good humor, desiring Marcolf to come to court the next day and bring a pail
of fresh milk and curds from the cow. Marcolf fails, and the king condemns
him to sit up all night in his company, threatening him with death in the
morning, should he fall asleep. This, of course, Marcolf does immediately,
and he snores aloud. Solomon asks, "Sleepest thou?"--And Marcolf replies,
"No, I think."--"What thinkest thou?"--"That there are as many vertebrae in
the hare's tail as in his backbone."--The king, assured that he has now
entrapped his adversary, replies: "If thou provest not this, thou diest in
the morning!" Over and over again Marcolf snores, and is awakened by
Solomon, but he is always _thinking_. He gives various answers during the
night: There are as many white feathers as black in the magpie.--There is
nothing whiter than daylight, daylight is whiter than milk.--Nothing can be
safely entrusted to a woman.--Nature is stronger than education.

Next day Marcolf proves all his statements. Thus, he places a pan of milk
in a dark closet, and suddenly calls the king. Solomon steps into the milk,
splashes himself, and nearly falls. "Son of perdition! what does this
mean?" roars the monarch. "May it please Your Majesty," says Marcolf,
"merely to show you that milk is not whiter than daylight." That nature is
stronger than education, Marcolf proves by throwing three mice, one after
the other, before a cat trained to hold a lighted candle in its paws during
the king's supper; the cat drops the taper, and chases the mice. Marcolf
further enters into a bitter abuse of womankind, and ends by inducing
Solomon himself to join in the diatribe. When the king perceives the trick,
he turns Marcolf out of court, and eventually orders him to be hanged. One
favor is granted to him: he may select his own tree. Marcolf and his guards
traverse the valley of Jehoshaphat, pass to Jericho over Jordan, through
Arabia and the Red Sea, but "never more could Marcolf find a tree that he