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fortune she has lost and repent of her ill-treatment of you. When I and my wife perceive that she is really humbled, I will let you know, and you can return.” The lean man approved of the plan, and in due time started on his travels. Six months later his partner received the letter announcing his death. The fat man then informed the widow that the shop and all the merchandise were his alone. He further seized all her belongings under pretext of some debt or other, leaving her destitute. As a well-known virago, she could find no employment, and was at last compelled to ask the fat man’s help. He reminded her coldly of the rudeness she had formerly shown to him, and reprehended her ill-treatment of his friend, her late husband. It was purely out of respect for that husband’s memory that he finally prevailed upon his wife to employ her as a servant. The excellent couple contrived to make her life with them so wretched that she thought of her former life as paradise, of her husband as an angel of light. When, therefore, the lean man reappeared she fell at his feet, and thenceforth to the end of her life was submissive.

There was once a merchant who knew the language of beasts. But this knowledge had been granted him only upon condition that, if he told the secrets learnt by its means, he should die instantly. No one, not even his wife, was aware that he was gifted beyond the common. One evening, standing near his stables, he heard