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garden with fountains. He didn't really want nine-hundred and
ninety-nine wives, but in those days everybody married ever so
many wives, and of course the King had to marry ever so many
more just to show that he was the King.

Some of the wives were nice, but some were simply horrid, and the
horrid ones quarrelled with the nice ones and made them horrid
too, and then they would all quarrel with Suleiman-bin-Daoud, and
that was horrid for him. But Balkis the Most Beautiful never
quarrelled with Suleiman-bin-Daoud. She loved him too much. She
sat in her rooms in the Golden Palace, or walked in the Palace
garden, and was truly sorry for him.

Of course if he had chosen to turn his ring on his finger and
call up the Djinns and the Afrits they would have magicked all
those nine hundred and ninety-nine quarrelsome wives into white
mules of the desert or greyhounds or pomegranate seeds; but
Suleiman-bin-Daoud thought that that would be showing off. So,
when they quarrelled too much, he only walked by himself in one
part of the beautiful Palace gardens and wished he had never been
born.

One day, when they had quarrelled for three weeks--all nine
hundred and ninety-nine wives together--Suleiman-bin-Daoud went
out for peace and quiet as usual; and among the orange trees he
met Balkis the Most Beautiful, very sorrowful because Suleiman-
bin-Daoud was so worried. And she said to him, 'O my Lord and
Light of my Eyes, turn the ring upon your finger and show these
Queens of Egypt and Mesopotamia and Persia and China that you are
the great and terrible King.' But Suleiman-bin-Daoud shook his
head and said, 'O my Lady and Delight of my Life, remember the
Animal that came out of the sea and made me ashamed before all
the animals in all the world because I showed off. Now, if I
showed off before these Queens of Persia and Egypt and Abyssinia
and China, merely because they worry me, I might be made even
more ashamed than I have been.'

And Balkis the Most Beautiful said, 'O my Lord and Treasure of my
Soul, what will you do?'

And Suleiman-bin-Daoud said, 'O my Lady and Content of my Heart,
I shall continue to endure my fate at the hands of these nine
hundred and ninety-nine Queens who vex me with their continual
quarrelling.'

So he went on between the lilies and the loquats and the roses
and the cannas and the heavy-scented ginger-plants that grew in
the garden, till he came to the great camphor-tree that was
called the Camphor Tree of Suleiman-bin-Daoud. But Balkis hid
among the tall irises and the spotted bamboos and the red lillies
behind the camphor-tree, so as to be near her own true love,
Suleiman-bin-Daoud.

Presently two Butterflies flew under the tree, quarrelling.

Suleiman-bin-Daoud heard one say to the other, 'I wonder at your
presumption in talking like this to me. Don't you know that if I

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