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 Dog said to the Cat and the Mouse, “I will abide and await you here, and do ye twain fare into the Palace, where the Cat shall take her station upon the crenelles over the lattice window and the Mouse shall enter the mansion and roam about and search through the rooms until she come upon the Ring required.”  So they did the Dog’s bidding and sought the places he had appointed to them and the Mouse crept about but found naught until she approached the bedstead and beheld the Jew asleep and the Princess lying afar off.  He had been longsome in requiring of her her person and had even threatened her with slaughter, yet he had no power to approach her nor indeed had he even looked upon the form of her face.  Withal the Mouse ceased not faring about until she approached the Jew, whom she discovered sleeping upon his back and drowned in slumber for the excess of his drink that weighed him down.  So she drew near and considered him and saw the Ring in his mouth below his tongue whereat she was perplext how to recover it; but presently she went forth to a vessel of oil and dipping her tail therein approached the sleeper and drew it over his nostrils, whereat he sneezed with a sneeze so violent that the Ring sprang from between his jaws and fell upon the side of the bedstead.  Then she seized it in huge joy and returning to the Cat said to her, “Verily the prosperity of our lord hath returned to him.”  After this the twain went back to the Dog whom they found expecting them, so they marched down to the sea and mounted upon his back and he swam with them both, all three being in the highest spirits.  But when they reached the middle of the main, quoth the Cat to the Mouse, “Pass the Ring to me that I may carry it awhile;” and the other did so, when she placed it in her chops for an hour of time.  Then quoth the Dog to them, “Ye twain have taken to yourselves charge of the Ring, each of you for a little time, and I also would do likewise.”  They both said to him, “O our brother, haply ’twill fall from thy mouth;” but said he to them, “By Allah, an ye give it not to me for a while I will drown you both in this very place.”  Accordingly the two did in their fear as the Dog desired and when he had set it in his chops it dropped therefrom into the abyss of the ocean; seeing which all repented thereat and they said, “Wasted is our work we have wrought.”  But when they came to land they found their lord sleeping from the excess of his cark and his care, and so the trio stood on the shore and were sorrowing with sore sorrow, when behold, there appeared to them a Fish strange of semblance who said to them, “Take ye this Signet-ring