Part 30 (2/2)

Upon the second day he went over hi but the dead mountain and the rocks and the empty houses

So caht

Out went all the lights in the new palace, and everything was as silent as death and as black as ink The door opened, and in ca as red as blood They took Selim the Fisherman by the arms and led him to the beautiful statue, and there she ith her eyes open

”Are you Selim?” said she

”Yes, I a of Wisdom?” said she

”Yes, I do,” said he; and so he did

There was no roaring and thundering, there was no shaking and quaking, there was no toppling and tu: for this island was solid rock, and was not all enchantment and hollow inside and underneath like the other which he had left behind

The beautiful statue sh the sun shone Down she came from the pedestal where she stood and kissed Selihts blazed everywhere, and the people shouted and cheered, and the music played But neither Seli

”I have done all this for you!” said Seli for you a thousand years!” said the beautiful statue--only she was not a statue any longer

After that they were married, and Seli and queen in real earnest

I think Selim the Fisherman sent for Selim the Baker and made him rich and happy--I hope he did--I am sure he did

So, after all, it is not always the lucky one who gathers the plums isdom is by to pick up what the other shakes down

I could say more; for, O little children! little children! there is -shell; and les a wise man's wits, and many a man dances and junkets in his fool's paradise till it co down about his ears some day; and there are fewof Wisdoer, and, alack-a-day! I am not one of them, and that is the end of this story

Old Bidpai nodded his head ”Aye, aye,” said he, ”there is a very good moral in that story, my friend It is, as a certain philosopher said, very true, that there isthan the meat And truly, methinks, there is more in thy story than the story of itself” He nodded his head again and stroked his beard slowly, puffing out as he did so as a great reflective cloud of sh which his eyes shone and twinkled h a cloud

”And whose turn is it now?” said Doctor Faustus

”Methinks tis mine,” said Boots--he who in fairy-tale always sat in the ashes at hoone out into the world awhile ”My story,” said he, ”hath no s hatch chickens” Then, without waiting for any one to say another word, he began it in these words ”I as are as Fate wills

Once upon a ti who had a head upon his shoulders wiser than other folk, and this hy: though he was richer and wiser and greater than ain, he was so afraid of beco proud of his own prosperity that he had these words written in letters of gold upon the walls of each and every roos are as Fate wills

Now, by-and-by and after a while the king died; for when his time comes, even the rich and the wise man 's son cah he was not so bad as the world of oes, he was not the man that his father was, as this story will show you

One day, as he sat with his chief councillor, his eyes fell upon the words written in letters of gold upon the wall--the words that his father had written there in tione by: