vulgar prejudices against the experiment, and would not give his
consent. Foiled in this, they yet agreed in another recommendation;
which, seeing that one imported his opinions from China and the
other from Thibet, was very remarkable indeed. They argued that, if
water of external origin and application could be so efficacious,
water from a deeper source might work a perfect cure; in short,
that if the poor afflicted princess could by any means be made to
cry, she might recover her lost gravity.

But how was this to be brought about? Therein lay all the
difficulty--to meet which the philosophers were not wise enough. To
make the princess cry was as impossible as to make her weigh. They
sent for a professional beggar; commanded him to prepare his most
touching oracle of woe; helped him out of the court charade box, to
whatever he wanted for dressing up, and promised great rewards in
the event of his success. But it was all in vain. She listened to
the mendicant artist's story, and gazed at his marvellous make up,
till she could contain herself no longer, and went into the most
undignified contortions for relief, shrieking, positively
screeching with laughter.

When she had a little recovered herself, she ordered her attendants
to drive him away, and not give him a single copper; whereupon his
look of mortified discomfiture wrought her punishment and his
revenge, for it sent her into violent hysterics, from which she was
with difficulty recovered.

But so anxious was the king that the suggestion should have a fair
trial, that he put himself in a rage one day, and, rushing up to
her room, gave her an awful whipping. Yet not a tear would flow.