Know, O King that a certain profligate man, who was addicted to the sex, once heard of a beautiful and lovely woman who dwelt in a city other than his own. So he journeyed there, taking with him a present, and wrote her a note, setting forth all that he suffered of love longing and desire for her and how his passion for her had driven him to forsake his native land and come to her; and he ended by praying for an assignation. She gave him leave to visit her and, as he entered her abode, she stood up and received him with all honour and worship, kissing his hands and entertaining him with the best entertainment of meat and drink. Now she had a little son, but three years old, whom she left and busied herself in cooking rice. Presently, the man said to her, "Come, let us go and lie together;" but she replied, "My son is sitting looking at us." the man said, "He is a little child, understanding not neither knowing how to speak." the woman said, "You would not say thus, If you knew his intelligence." When the boy saw that the rice was done, he wept with bitter weeping and his mother said to him, "What gars you weep, O my son?" "Ladle me out some rice," he answered, "and put clarified butter in it."

So she ladled him out something of rice and put butter within it; and the child ate a little, then began to weep again She said, "What ails you now, O my son?"; and he said, "O mother mine, I want some sugar with my rice." At this said the man, who was an angered, "You are none other than a curst child." "Curst yourself, By God," answered the boy, "seeing you weariest yourself and journeyest from city to city, in quest of adultery. As for me, I wept because I had something in my eye, and my tears brought it out; and now I have eaten rice with butter and sugar and am content; so which is the curst of us twain?" The man was confounded at this rebuke from a little child and directly grace entered him and he was reclaimed. Why he laid not a finger on the woman, but went out from her and returned to his own country, where he lived a contrite life till he died.

"As for the story of the five year old child" (continued the Prince), "I have heard tell, O King, the following anent