This event was a lesson to him, therefore; and he was so frightened by it, that he did not care for the future to be too curious about other people's affairs, or at least to take upon himself the form of such a fragile thing as a blue-bottle fly.
"One morning—indeed I believe on my conscience that his majesty and the vizier had been gadding all night, or they never could have been abroad so early—they were passing those large swampy grounds, which everybody knows are in the neighbourhood of Tehran, and where the Persian lords are in the habit of hunting herons with the hawk. The two gentlemen were disguised, I don't know how; but seeing a stork by the side of the pool, stretching its long neck, and tossing about its legs very queerly, King Mushook felt suddenly a longing to know what these motions of the animal meant, and taking upon themselves likewise the likeness of storks (the vizier's dumpy nose stretched out into a very strange bill, I promise you), they both advanced to the bird at the pool, and greeted it in the true storkish language.
"'Good morning, Mr. Long Bill,' said the stork (a female), curtseying politely, you are abroad early to day; and the sharp air, no doubt, makes you hungry: here is half an eel which I beg you to try, or a frog, which you will find very fat and tender.' But the royal stork was not inclined to eat frogs, being no Frank.'"
"Have a care, Scheherazade," here interposed the Sultan. "Do you mean to tell me that there are any people, even among the unbelievers, who are such filthy wretches as to eat frogs?—Bah! I can't believe it!"
Scheherazade did not vouch for the fact, but continued. "The king declined the proffered breakfast, and presently falling into conversation with the young female stork, bantered her gaily about her presence in such a place of a morning, and without her mamma, praised her figure and the slimness of her legs (which made the young stork blush till she was almost as red as a flamingo), and paid her a thousand compliments that made her think the stranger one of the most delightful creatures she had ever met.
"'Sir, said she, 'we live in some reeds hard by; and as my
