rd the outer door.

"Stay, stay--what ails thee?" cried Ben Maslia.

"Stop, stop," echoed the servants, as Abi Fressah commenced to run.

The cry was taken up in the street by those who saw a fat man panting
along in the darkness, pursued by a number of servants.

"Stop thief!" was the cry of one man in his excitement. The town
guards heard, and without any ado they seized Abi Fressah and hauled
him off to the jail. In vain he begged for mercy and struggled for
freedom.

"If thou wilt not behave, we shall use force," the guards said, and
they beat him with staves.

At the jail, Abi Fressah was flung into a cell, and there, on a bed of
straw on the ground, he spent a horrible, sleepless night. He ached in
every bone in his body, he was bruised all over, and his hunger was
such that he felt he had never eaten in his life. His reflections were
sad, as you may well imagine, and they led him to a vow that never
again would he seek the hospitality of his friends. He realized at
last that he had made himself obnoxious and had been cleverly and
deservedly well punished.

Even yet his sufferings were not at an end, for next morning, when he
was released and sent for his physician, the latter prescribed a diet
of gruel and barley water for a whole week!

[Illustration: He found a beautiful youth, clad in a deer skin,
lying on the ground. (_Page 115_).]

The Beggar King

Proud King Hagag sat on his throne in state, and the high priest,
standing by his side, read from the Holy Book, as was his daily
custom. He read these words: "For riches are not for ever: and doth
the crown endure to every generation?"

"Cease!" cried the king. "Who wrote those words?"

"They are the words of the Holy Book," answered the high priest.

"Give me the book," commanded the king.

With trembling hands the high priest placed it before his majesty.
King Hagag gazed earnestly at the words that had been read, and he
frowned. Raising his hand, he tore the page from the book and threw it
to the ground.

"I, Hagag, am king," he said, "and all such passages that offend me
shall be torn out."

He flung the volume angrily from him while the high priest and all his
courtiers looked on in astonishment.

"I have heard enough for today," he said. "Too long have I delayed my
hunting expedition. Let the horses be got ready."

He descended from the throne, stalked haughtily past the trembling
figure of the high priest, and went for