een Has a Black
Baby.--Osmin is Dismissed.

I have already told how the envoys of the King of Arda, an African
prince, gave to the Queen a nice little blackamoor, as a toy and pet.
This Moor, aged about ten or twelve years, was only twenty-seven inches
in height, and the King of Arda declared that, being quite unique, the
boy would never grow to be taller than three feet.

The Queen instantly took a great fancy to this black creature. Sometimes
he gambolled about and turned somersaults on her carpet like a kitten, or
frolicked about on the bureau, the sofa, and even on the Queen's lap.

As she passed from one room to another, he used to hold up her train, and
delighted to catch hold of it and so make the Queen stop short suddenly,
or else to cover his head and face with it, for mischief, to make the
courtiers laugh.

He was arrayed in regular African costume, wearing handsome bracelets,
armlets, a necklace ablaze with jewels, and a splendid turban. Wishing
to show myself agreeable, I gave him a superb aigrette of rubies and
diamonds; I was always sorry afterwards that I did so.

The King could never put up with this little dwarf, albeit his features
were comely enough. To begin with, he thought him too familiar, and
never even answered him when the dwarf dared to address him.

Following the fashion set by her Majesty, all the Court ladies wanted to
have little blackamoors to follow them about, set off their white
complexions, and hold up their cloaks or their trains. Thus it came that
Mignard, Le Bourdon, and other painters of the aristocracy, used to
introduce negro boys into all their large portraits. It was a mode, a
mania; but so absurd a fashion soon had to disappear after the mishap of
which I am about to tell.

The Queen being pregnant, public prayers were offered up for her
according to custom, and her Majesty was forever saying: "My pregnancy
this time is different from preceding ones. I am a prey to nausea and
strange whims; I have never felt like this before. If, for propriety's
sake, I did not restrain myself, I should now dearly like to be turning
somersaults on the carpet, like little Osmin. He eats green fruit and
raw game; that is what I should like to do, too. I should like to--"

"Oh, madame, you frighten us!" exclaimed the King. "Don't let all those
whimsies trouble you further, or you will give birth to some monstrosity,
some freak of nature." His Majesty was a true prophet. Th