Amazing Stories, Vol. 3, No. 2 — page 38: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE 133 sun to paint his portrait, and the sun did.** Another took this luminary with the moon and the planets, and having first weighed them with scrupulous accuracy, probed into their depths and found out the solidity of the substance of which they are made. But the whole nation.is, indeed, of so surprising a necromantic ability, that not even their infants, nor their commonest cats and dogs, have any difficulty in seeing objects that do not exist at all, or that for twenty-millions of years be- fore the birth of the nation itself, had been blotted out from the face of creation.’ *° “Preposterous!”” said the king. “*The wives and daughters of these incomparably great and wise magi, ” continued Scheherazade, without being in any manner disturbed by these frequent and most ungentlemanly interruptions on the part of her husband——“ ‘the wives and daughters of these eminent cohjurors are everything that is accomplished and re- fined; and would be everything that is interesting and beautiful, but for an unhappy fatality that besets them, and from which not even the miraculous powers of their husbands and fathers has, hitherto, been adequate * The Daguerreotype. % Although light travels 183,000 miles in a second, the dis- tances of 61 Cygni (the first star whose distance was ascer- tained,) is so inconceivably great, that its rays would require more than ten years to reach the earth. For stars beyond this, 20—or even 1,000 years—would be a moderate estimate. Thus, if they had been annihilated 20, or 1,000 years ago, we might still see them to-day, by the light which stavted ftom their surfaces, 20 or 1,000 years in the past time, That many which we see daily are really extinct, is not impossible—not even improbable, The elder Herschel maintains that the light of -the faintest nebule seen through his great telescope, must have taken 3,000,000 years in reaching the earth. Some, made visible by Lord Ross’ instrument must, then, have requited at least 20,000,000. - to save. Some fatalities come in certain shapes, and some in others—but this of which I speak, has come in the shape of a crochet.’ ” °° “A what?” said the king. “ *A crochet,’ ”’ said Scheherazade. “ ‘One of the evil genii who are perpetually upon the watch to inflict ill, has put it into the heads of these accomplished ladies that the thing which we describe as personal beauty, consists altogether in the protruberance of the region which lies not very far below, the small of the back. Perfection of loveliness, they say, is in the direct ratio of the extent of this hump. Having been long possessed of this idea, and bolsters being cheap in that country, the days have long gone by since it was possible to dis- tinguish a woman from a dromedary—’ ” “Stop!” said the king—‘I can’t stand that, and I won't. You have already given me a dreadful headache with your lies. The day, too, I perceive, is beginning to break. How long have we been married?—my con- science is getting to be troublesome again. And then that dromedary touch—do you take me for a fool? Upon the whole, you might as well get up and be. throttled.” These words, as I learn from the IsitsGornot, both grieved and astonished Scheherazade; but, as she knew the king to be a man of scrupulous integrity, and quite unlikely to forfeit his word, she submitted to her fate with good grace. She derived, however, great conso- lation (during the tightening of the bowstring) from the reflection that much of the history remained still untold, and that the petulance of her brute of a husband — had reaped for him a most righteous reward, in depriv- ing him of many inconceivable adventures. The “bustle” of mid-Victorian terminology —Ebitor. THE END BIG SPRING EDITION OF THE AMAZING STORIES QUARTERLY OUT APRIL, ‘24th ! HERE is a new, big Sprinc issue of the Amazinc Storres QuaRTERLY now on the news- stands for you. Biggest, best edition yet published. Be sure that you get your copy-of this remarkable book of truly amazing stories, Many of the famous authors, whose work you have become familiar with by reading Amazine Stories Monrtu_y, you will find represented in this big Spring edition of AmazING STORIES QUARTERLY. The following is a partial list of the contents of this big new edition. Nth MAN—Homer Eon Flint THE KING OF THE MONKEY MEN—4A. Flyatt Verrill THE SECOND SWARM — THE SUNKEN WORLD These and many other equally good tales combine to make one of the most interesting and 50c best editions of the Amazinc StTortes QUARTERLY. Ovew 150 pages—fully illus trated—large magazine size the copy Ai all news dealers or write direct. THE EXPERIMENTER PUBLISHING COMPANY 4 230 FIFTH AVE., N. Y. C. SOMILGDOOKS.GOM