to
which Cassim's body had been cleft by the forty thieves. When the
thieves discovered that the body had been taken away, they sent one
of the band into the city, to ascertain who had died of late. The man
happened to enter the cobbler's stall, and falling into a gossip heard
about the body which the cobbler had sewed together. Mustapha pointed
out to him the house of Cassim Baba's widow, and the thief marked it
with a piece of white chalk. Next day the cobbler pointed out the
house to another, who marked it with red chalk. And the day following
he pointed it out to the captain of the band, who instead of
marking the door studied the house till he felt sure of recognizing
it.--_Arabian Nights_ ("Ali Baba, or The Forty Thieves").

BABABALOUK, chief of the black eunuchs, whose duty it was to wait
on the sultan, to guard the sultanas, and to superintend the
harem.--Habesci, _State of the Ottoman Empire_, 155-6.

BABES IN THE WOOD, insurrectionary hordes that infested the mountains
of Wicklow and the woods of Enniscarthy towards the close of the
eighteenth century. (See CHILDREN IN THE WOOD.)

BABIE, old Alice Gray's servant-girl.--Sir W. Scott, _Bride of
Lammermoor_ (time, William III.).

BABIECA (3 _syl._), the Cid's horse.

I learnt to prize Babieca from his head unto his
hoof.

_The Cid_ (1128).

BABOON (_Philip_), Philippe Bourbon, duc d'Anjou.

_Lewis Baboon_, Louis XIV., "a false loon of a grandfather to Philip,
and one that might justly be called a Jack-of-all-trades."

Sometimes you would see this Lewis Baboon
behind his counter, selling broad-cloth, sometimes
measuring linen; next day he would be
dealing in mercery-ware; high heads, ribbons,
gloves, fans, and lace, he understood to a nicety
... nay, he would descend to the selling of
tapes, garters, and shoebuckles. When shop
was shut up he would go about the neighborhood,
and earn half-a-crown, by teaching the
young men and maidens to dance. By these
means he had acquired immense riches, which he
used to squander away at back-sword [_in war_],
quarter-staff, and cudgel-play, in which he took
great pleasure.--Dr. Arbuthnot, _History of John
Bull_, ii. (1712).

BABY BELL, the infant whose brief beautiful life is given in the poem
that first drew the eyes of the world to the young American poet, T.B.
Aldrich, then but nineteen years of age.

Have you not heard the poets tell
How came the dainty Baby Bell