e the king's son saw the
wife of Kuveradatta when he was absent from home. An
illicit amour was about to begin, when the bird
interposed by relating tales of chaste wives, and
detained the wanton lady at home till her husband
returned.

The order of the parrot's tales is not the same in all texts; in
Kadiri's abridgment there are few of the Nights which correspond with
those of the India Office MS. No. 2573, which may, perhaps, be partly
accounted for by the circumstance that Kadiri has given only 35 of the
52 tales that are in the original text. For the general reader, however,
the sequence of the tales is a minor consideration; and I shall content
myself with giving abstracts of some of the best stories, irrespective
of their order in any text, and complete translations of two or three
others. It so happens that the Third Night is the same in Kadiri and the
India Office MS. No. 2573, which comprises the complete text; and the
story the eloquent bird relates on that night may be entitled

_The Stolen Images._

A goldsmith and a carpenter, travelling in company, steal from a Hindu
temple some golden images, which, when they arrive in the neighbourhood
of their own city, they bury beneath a tree. The goldsmith goes secretly
one night and carries away the images, and next morning, when both go
together to share the spoil, the goldsmith accuses the carpenter of
having played him false. But the carpenter was a shrewd fellow, and so
he makes a figure resembling the goldsmith, dresses it in clothes
similar to what he usually wore, and procures a couple of bear's cubs,
which he teaches to take their food from the skirts and sleeves of the
effigy. Thus the cubs conceived a great affection for the figure of the
goldsmith. He then contrives to steal the goldsmith's two sons, and,
when the father comes to seek them at his house, he pretends they have
been changed into young bears. The goldsmith brings his case before the
kazi; the cubs are brought into court, and no sooner do they discover
the goldsmith than they run up and fondle him. Upon this the judge
decides in favour of the carpenter, to whom the goldsmith confesses his
guilt, and offers to give up all the gold if he restore his children,
which he does accordingly.[44]

[44] Many Asiatic stories relate to the concealing of
treasure--generally at the foot of a tree, to mark the
spot--by two or more companions,