ay figure for Niafer to
live in, Manuel should have been so largely guided by the elsewhere
estimable qualities of innocence and imagination. It frequently put her,
she said, to great inconvenience.

Now Manuel had been inquiring about this and that and the other since
his arrival in Novogath, and so Manuel to-day replied with lordly
assurance. "Yes, yes, a baby or two!" says Manuel. "I think myself that
would be an excellent idea, while we are waiting for Queen Stultitia to
make up her subjects' minds, and have nothing else in particular to
do--"

"But, Manuel, you know perfectly well--"

"--And I am sufficiently versed in the magic of the Apsarasas to be able
to summon the stork, who by rare good luck is already indebted to me--"

"What has the stork to do with this?"

"Why, it is he who must bring the babies to be company for you."

"But, Manuel," said Niafer, dubiously, "I do not believe that the people
of Rathgor, or of Poictesme either, get their babies from the stork."

"Doubtless, like every country, they have their quaint local customs. We
have no concern, however with these provincialities just now, for we are
in Philistia. Besides, as you cannot well have forgotten, our main
dependence is upon the half-promised alliance with Queen Stultitia, who
is, as far as I can foresee, my darling, the only monarch anywhere
likely to support us."

"But what has Queen Stultitia to do with my having a baby?"

"Everything, dear snip. You must surely understand it is most important
for one in my position to avoid in any way offending the sensibilities
of the Philistines."

"Still, Manuel, the Philistines themselves have babies, and I do not see
how they could have conceivably objected to my having at any rate a very
small one if only you had made me right--"

"Not at all! nobody objects to the baby in itself, now that you are a
married woman. The point is that the babies of the Philistines are
brought to them by the stork; and that even an allusion to the
possibility of misguided persons obtaining a baby in any other way these
Philistines consider to be offensive and lewd and lascivious and
obscene."

"Why, how droll of them! But are you sure of that, Manuel!"

"All their best-thought-of and most popular writers, my dear, are
unanimous upon the point; and their Seranim have passed any number of
laws, their oil-merchants have founded a guild, especially to prosecute
such references. No, there is, to be sure, a