, deep sigh, and said, "Is it indeed so? What, then, must the
other three be?"

The Turkish romance of the Forty Vazirs--the plan of which is similar to
that of the Book of Sindibad and its derivatives--furnishes us with two
stories of the same class, one of which is as follows, according to my
friend Mr. Gibb's complete translation (the first that has been made in
English), recently published:[15]

They have told that in bygone times there was a king, and he had a
skilful minstrel. One day a certain person gave to the latter a little
boy, that he might teach him the science of music. The boy abode a long
time by him, and though the master instructed him, he succeeded not in
learning, and the master could make nothing of him. He arranged a scale,
and said, "Whatsoever thou sayest to me, say in this scale." So
whatsoever the boy said he used to say in that scale. Now one day a
spark of fire fell on the master's turban. The boy saw it and chanted,
"O master, I see something; shall I say it or no?" and he went over the
whole scale. Then the master chanted, "O boy, what dost thou see?
Speak!" and he too went over all that the boy had gone over. Then the
turn came to the boy, and he chanted, "O master, a spark has fallen on
thy turban, and it is burning." The master straightway tore off his
turban and cast it on the ground, and saw that it was burning. He blew
out the fire on this side and on that, and took it in his hand, and said
to the boy, "What time for chanting is this? Everything is good in its
own place," and he admonished him.[16]

The other story tells how a king had a stupid son, and placed him in
charge of a cunning master, learned in the sciences, who declared it
would be easy for him to teach the boy discretion, and, before
dismissing him, the king gave the sage many rich gifts. After the boy
has been long under the tuition of his learned master, the latter,
conceiving him to be well versed in all the sciences, takes him to the
king, his father, who says to him, "O my son, were I to hold a certain
thing hidden in my hand, couldst thou tell me what it is?" "Yes,"
answers the youth. Upon this the king secretly slips the ring off his
finger, and hides it in his hand, and then asks the boy, "What have I in
my hand?" Quoth the clever youth, "O father, it first came from the
hills." (The king thinks to himself, "He knows that mines are in the
hills.") "And it is a round thing," continues he--"it must be a
millston