_Plot_. The plot of the short story as a distinct type of literature has
been said to show a steady progress from the impossible through the
improbable and probable to the inevitable. When we say of a story that
the conclusion is inevitable we mean that, with the given background and
characters, it could not have ended in any other way, just as, with a
given multiplier and multiplicand, one product and only one is possible.
This cannot be said of "Ali Baba," because the five parts are not linked
together in a logical sequence as are the events in "The Gold-Bug," or
by any controlling idea of reform such as we find in "A Christmas
Carol," or by any underlying moral purpose like that which gives unity
and dignity to "The Great Stone Face." These Perso-Arabian tales, in
other words, are stories of random incident, loosely but charmingly
told, with always the note of strangeness and unexpectedness. The
incidents, however, reflect accurately the manners and customs of time
and place. We do not believe that a door ever opened to the magic of
mere words, but we do believe and cannot help believing that the author
tells the truth when he writes of leather jars full of oil, of bands of
mounted robbers, of a poor man who could support himself by hauling wood
from the free-for-all forest, of slavery from which one might escape by
notable fidelity, of funeral rites performed by the imaum and other
ministers of the mosque, and of the unwillingness of an assassin to
attempt the life of a man with whom he had just eaten salt. Fancy, it is
true, mingles with fact in "The Arabian Nights," but it does not replace
fact.

_Characters_. Morgiana is the leading character. She furnishes all the
brains employed in the story. The narrator praises her "courage" twice,
but she had more than courage. Fidelity, initiative, and resourcefulness
must also be put among her assets. We can hardly imagine her as acting