he entertained them for some time.  Then said he to them one day, “There was with us bread and the locusts ate it; so we set in its place a stone, one cubit long and the like broad, and the locusts came and nibbled away the stone, because of the smell of the bread.”  Quoth one of his friends (and it was he who had given him the lie concerning the dog and the bread and milk), “Marvel not at this, for rats and mice do more than that.”  Thereupon he said, “Get ye home!  In the days of my poverty 1 was a liar when I told you of the dogs jumping upon the shelf and eating the bread and defiling the milk; and to-day, because I am rich again, I say sooth when I tell you that locusts devoured a stone one cubit long and one cubit broad.”  They were abashed by his speech and departed from him; and the youth’s good prospered and his case was amended.  “Nor” (continued the Wazir), “is this stranger or more seld-seen than the story of the Prince who fell in love with the picture.”  Quoth the king, Shah Bakht, “Haply, an I hear this story, I shall gain wisdom from it:  so I will not hasten in the slaying of this Minister, nor will I do him die before the thirty days have expired.”  Then he gave him leave to withdraw, and he hied away to his own house.

The Sixth Night of the Month.

When the day absconded and the evening arrived, the king sat private in his chamber and, summoning the Wazir, who presented himself to him, questioned him of the story.  So the Minister said, “Hear, O auspicious king,

The Tale of the Prince who Fell in Love with the Picture.

There was once, in a province of Persia, a king of the kings, who was great of degree, a magnifico, endowed with majesty and girt by soldiery; but he was childless.  Towards the end of his life, his Lord vouchsafed him a male-child, and that boy grew up and was comely and learned all manner of lore.  He made him a private place, which was a towering palace, edified with coloured marbles and jewels and paintings.  When the Prince entered the palace, he saw in its ceiling the picture of a maiden, than whom he had never beheld a fairer of aspect, and she was surrounded by slave-girls; whereupon he fell down in a fainting fit and became distracted for love of her.  Then he sat under the picture till his father came in to him one day, and finding him lean of limb and changed of complexion (which was by reason of his continual looking on that picture), imagined that he was ill and summoned the sages and the leaches, that they might medicine him.  He also said to one of his cup-companions, “An thou canst learn what aileth my son, thou shalt have of me the white hand."[FN#358] Thereupon he went in to him and spake him fair and cajoled him, till he confessed to him that his malady was caused by the picture.  Then the courtier returned to the king and told him what ailed his son, whereupon he transported the Prince to another palace and made his former lodging the guest-house; and whoso