widow of a great Khan. On the wedding-night
she determined to assert her authority over him.
So she treated him with great contempt when he
came into the anderoon, and sat luxuriously
embedded in rose-leaf cushions, caressing a large
white cat, of which she pretended to be dotingly
fond. She appeared to be annoyed by her
husband's entrance, and looked at him out of the
corners of her eyes with a glance of cold disdain.

"I dislike cats," remarked the young soldier,
blandly, as if he was making a mere casual
observation; "they offend my sight."

If his wife had looked at him with a glance of
cold disdain before, her eyes now wore an
expression of anger and contempt, such as no
words can express. She did not even deign to
answer him, but she took the cat to her bosom
and fondled it passionately. Her whole heart
seemed to be in the cat, and cold was the
shoulder which she turned to her husband.
Bitter was the sneer upon her beautiful lips.

"When any one offends me," continued her
gallant, gaily, "I cut off his head. It is a
peculiarity of mine which I am sure will only
make me dearer to you." then, drawing his
sword, he took the cat gently but firmly from
her arms, cut off his head, wiped the blade,
sheathed it, and sat down, continuing to talk
affectionately to his wife as if nothing had
happened. After which, says tradition, she
became the best and most submissive wife in the
world.

A henpecked fellow, meeting him next day
as he rode with a gallant train through the
market-place, began to condole with him. "Ah!"
said the henpecked, with deep feeling, "you,
too, have taken a wife, and got a tyrant. You
had better have remained the poor soldier
that you were. I pity you from my very heart."

"Not so," replied the ruffler, jollily; "keep
your sighs to cool yourself next summer." He
then related the events of his wedding-night,
with their satisfactory results.

The henpecked man listened attentively, and
pondered long. "I also have a sword," said he,
"though it is rusty and my wife is likewise fond
of cats. I will cut off the head of my wife's
favourite cat at once." He did so, and received
a sound beating. His wife, moreover, made
him go down upon his knees and tell her what
ghin, or evil spirit, had prompted him to commit
the bloody deed.

"Fool!" said the lady, with a vixenish smile,
when she had possessed herself of the
henpecked's secret, "you should have done it the
first night."

Moral Advice is useless to fools.

THE SHIRT OF HAPPINESS

It is said that once upon a time, in the grand
old fable days, a Persian king who fell sick
consulted a magician of great reputation who lived
in his dominions. The magician, a worthy
gentleman who nourished in much personal
comfort upon popular opinion, received the king
with great respect and the most flowery
language his imagination could invent. Having
listened to his majesty's ailments with profound
attention, the magician at length informed the
king, that if he could succeed in obtaining the
shirt of a happy man, he had only to put on the
precious garment to be cured immediately of his
malady; and, so long as he wore it, he would
never know sorrow nor disease.

The realms of the monarch were wide. His
armies were mighty upon the land, and his fleets
were supreme upon the seas. His banners had
never known defeat. His treasury was full to
overflowing, and his subjects were loyal and
obedient. But, whenever he ate a bowl of
cream, or a dozen skewers of kabobs, or a few
water-melons, he had suffered so much of late
years from indigestion that he could not consider
himself happy; so it was obvious that his majesty
himself had no shirt in his wardrobe which
would answer the purpose.

"But," thought the king, very naturally,
" there is my prime minister, a fellow who can
put any quantity of cream, sweet or sour, under
the robe of honour which I gave him last
Nooroos, and as for kabobs, why, yesterday, I
thought he would never have done munching
them. He is married to my daughter. His
horses are far better than mine. He has no end
of money" (his majesty thought of this with a
peculiar look, which might mean many things),
"and he has just built himself a palace fairer
than the British Embassy. Whose dog is he,
that he should not be happy?" So the king
sent for the prime minister, and asked him at
once for his shirt. The statesman, glad to
oblige his master on such easy terms, and slyly
resolving to obtain any number of equivalents
whenever occasion should offer to indemnify
himself, immediately sent the king the very best
shirt in his wardrobe. It was made of the finest
and lightest silk, thin as a spider's web, and
beautifully embroidered; but, wonderful as it
appeared to his majesty, he suffered from
indigestion more than ever after putting it on; and,
far worse, he felt a tightness about the neck as
of a person apprehensive of being bowstrung, or
actually undergoing that process — a sensation
which he never remembered to have felt since
he had been at war for the crown with his three
hundred and ten brothers, after his father's
death; and, as all those brothers had been long
ago disposed of in various ways which his
majesty did not care to remember, he could not
account for the return of the old sensation in
his throat, and hastened to take off the prime
minister's shirt as soon as possible.

Feeling, however, that he had been imposed
upon, and that the prime minister must have sent
him somebody else's shirt instead of his own,
the king ordered his ferroshes to seize that
politician, and bring him bound into his presence.

"To hear is to obey," said the ferroshes.

When the prime minister appeared, the king
received him with a terrible countenance:
"Dog!" said his majesty, in an awful voice,
"why have you deceived me, and sent the shirt
of some other man accursed of Allah, instead of
your own?"