you like
to hear music, or to see the dancing-girls, or to ride out in the
moonlight?"

The man laughed. "None of these things, sir," he said. "The day has been
long, and a feeling of weariness overcomes me. I should now like to
sleep."

"That is some new game?" asked the King, intelligently.

"Sleep?" said the Princess Melissa. "We do not know that. What is this
sleep?"

The man explained it as best he could, and his account was received with
the greatest interest. Many questions were put to him.

"I perceive," said the King at last, "that this sleep is really a little
death. For the time being you are dead. Take my advice, therefore, O
stranger, and give it up. It is an awful risk, thus voluntarily to enter
into the place of death. Suppose that one day you find something there
that keeps you, and you cannot come back again."

The stranger explained that, so far was this from being the case, that
every time when he went to sleep he was more afraid that something would
wake him, than that he would never wake at all.

"I fear," said the King, "that this shows that you have not thought
about the matter profoundly."

"Possibly not," said the stranger. "But I am as I am constructed. I
sleep because I must sleep. Had I but a couch to lie upon, I could be
asleep now in five minutes."

"How exciting," said the Princess Melissa.

"May we all see it? May we watch you when you are dead of the little
death?"

"Most certainly," said the stranger politely. "I am so tired that I am
likely to sleep very soundly, but all the same noise or bright light
would wake me again, and that would make me very angry. I must beg,
therefore, that when you come to look upon me in my sleep, the light may
be subdued and no sound may be made."

And to this condition they agreed.

A room was prepared for the stranger in the palace. It was thickly
carpeted, so that no footfall could sound. It had a curtained entrance,
that the stranger might not be disturbed by the sound of the door
opening and shutting when people entered to see the show. The room was
dimly lit by the flame of a small lamp. In five minutes the stranger was
asleep.

One by one they entered the room--the King, the Princess, and all the
people of the court--to see this new and awful phenomenon of a man who
was dead of his own volition and would yet come to life again. Three
ladies of the court fainted on leaving the apartment. The King became
terribly anxious. "This is