When he had spoken, the King made a point of his eyebrows, and exclaimed, ’Shiraz?  So they hold out against Shagpat yet, aha?  Shiraz! that nest of them! that reptile’s nest!’ Then he turned to his Vizier beside him, and said, ‘What shall be done with this fellow?’

So the Vizier replied, ’’Twere well, O King, he be summoned to a sense of the loathsomeness of his craft by the agency of fifty stripes.’

The King said, ‘’Tis commanded!’

Then he passed forward in his majesty, and Shibli Bagarag was ware of the power of five slaves upon him, and he was hurried at a quick pace through the streets and before the eyes of the people, even to the common receptacle of felons, and there received from each slave severally ten thwacks with a thong:  ’tis certain that at every thwack the thong took an airing before it descended upon him.  Then loosed they him, to wander whither he listed; and disgust was strong in him by reason of the disgrace and the severity of the administration of the blows.  He strayed along the streets in wretchedness, and hunger increased on him, assailing him first as a wolf in his vitals, then as it had been a chasm yawning betwixt his trunk and his lower members.  And he thought, ’I have been long in chase of great things, and the hope of attaining them is great; yet, wullahy! would I barter all for one refreshing meal, and the sense of fulness.  ‘Tis so, and sad is it!’ And he was mindful of the poet’s words,—­

     Who seeks the shadow to the substance sinneth,
     And daily craving what is not, he thinneth: 
        His lean ambition how shall he attain? 
     For with this constant foolishness he doeth,
     He, waxing liker to what he pursueth,
        Himself becometh what he chased in vain!

And again: 

     Of honour half my fellows boast,—­
        A thing that scorns and kills us: 
     Methinks that honours us the most
        Which nourishes and fills us.

So he thought he would of a surety fling far away his tackle, discard barbercraft, and be as other men, a mortal, forgotten with his generation.  And he cried aloud, ’O thou old woman! thou deceiver! what halt thou obtained for me by thy deceits? and why put I faith in thee to the purchase of a thwacking?  Woe’s me!  I would thou hadst been but a dream, thou crone! thou guileful parcel of belabouring bones!’

Now, while he lounged and strolled, and was abusing the old woman, he looked before him, and lo, one lolling in his shop-front, and people standing outside the shop, marking him with admiration and reverence, and pointing him out to each other with approving gestures.  He who lolled there was indeed a miracle of hairiness, black with hair as he had been muzzled with it, and his head as it were a berry in a bush by reason of it.  Then thought Shibli Bagarag, ’’Tis Shagpat!  If the mole could swear to him, surely can I.’  So he regarded the clothier, and