the wooden plate on her head, she fell
and died.

"Oh, why have you killed my wife?" cried the mouse.

"Did we not tell you she would fall and kill herself?" answered the
rope-dancers.

The mouse seized all the jugglers' and rope-dancers' wives, and the
things they used in dancing and juggling, and ran off with them. Then
the rope-dancers and jugglers began to cry, and said, "What shall we
do? Our wives and our property are all gone!"

Meanwhile the mouse ran on and on until he came to another country,
where he got a house to live in. And he ate a great deal, and grew so
fat that he could not get through the door of his house.

"Send for a carpenter," said he to the rope-dancers' and jugglers'
wives, "and tell him to cut off some of my flesh. Then I shall be able
to get into my house."

The women sent for a carpenter, and when he came the mouse said to
him, "cut off some of my flesh, then I shall be able to go into my
house."

"If I do," said the carpenter, "you will die."

"No, I shan't die," said the mouse. "Do as I bid you."

So the carpenter took his knife, and cut off some of the mouse's
flesh.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" cried the mouse; "how it does hurt! What can I
do to make it stop paining me?"

"You must go to a certain place, where a particular kind of grain
grows, and rub the grain on your wounds. Then they will get quite
well," said the carpenter.

So the mouse ran off to the place to which the carpenter had told him
to go, and rubbed his wounds with the grain. This gave him such pain
that he fell down and died.

The rope-dancers' and jugglers' wives went home to their husbands with
all the things the mouse had carried away, and they all lived happily
ever after.

Told by Karim.

[Decoration]

[Decoration]

XVIII.

A WONDERFUL STORY.

Once there lived two wrestlers, who were both very very strong. The
stronger of the two had a daughter called Ajit; the other had no
daughter at all. These wrestlers did not live in the same country, but
their two villages were not far apart.

One day the wrestler that had no daughter heard of the wrestler that
had a daughter, and he determined to go and find him and wrestle with
him, to see who was the stronger. He went therefore to Ajit's father's
country, and when he arrived at his house, he knocked at the door and
said, "Is any one here?" Ajit answered, "Yes, I am here;" and she came
out. "Where is the wrestler who lives in this house?