tobacco-stoppers; and how the leopard stuck to warm little fingers;
and how the tails of the larger animals used gradually to resolve
themselves into frayed bits of string!

Hush! Again a forest, and somebody up in a tree--not Robin Hood,
not Valentine, not the Yellow Dwarf (I have passed him and all
Mother Bunch's wonders, without mention), but an Eastern King with a
glittering scimitar and turban. By Allah! two Eastern Kings, for I
see another, looking over his shoulder! Down upon the grass, at the
tree's foot, lies the full length of a coal-black Giant, stretched
asleep, with his head in a lady's lap; and near them is a glass box,
fastened with four locks of shining steel, in which he keeps the
lady prisoner when he is awake. I see the four keys at his girdle
now. The lady makes signs to the two kings in the tree, who softly
descend. It is the setting-in of the bright Arabian Nights.

Oh, now all common things become uncommon and enchanted to me. All
lamps are wonderful; all rings are talismans. Common flower-pots
are full of treasure, with a little earth scattered on the top;
trees are for Ali Baba to hide in; beef-steaks are to throw down
into the Valley of Diamonds, that the precious stones may stick to
them, and be carried by the eagles to their nests, whence the
traders, with loud cries, will scare them. Tarts are made,
according to the recipe of the Vizier's son of Bussorah, who turned
pastrycook after he was set down in his drawers at the gate of
Damascus; cobblers are all Mustaphas, and in the habit of sewing up
people cut into four pieces, to whom they are taken blind-fold.

Any iron ring let into stone is the entrance to a cave which only
waits for the magician, and the little fire, and the necromancy,