The works of Edgar Allan Poe; newly collected and edited, with a memoir, critical introductions, and notes, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry; the illustrations by Albert Edward Sterner.

TALES OF PSEUDO-SCIENCE

been reading Machiavelli, beyond doubt) had a very
ingenious little plot in her mind. On the night of the
wedding she contrived, upon I forget what specious
pretence, to have her sister occupy a couch sufficiently
near that of the royal pair to admit of easy conversation from bed to bed; and, a little before cock-crowing,
she took care to awaken the good monarch, her hus.
band (who bore her none the worse will because he
intended to wring her neck on the morrow)-she
managed to awaken him, I say (although on account
of a capital conscience and an easy digestion, he slept
well), by the profound interest of a story (about a rat
and a black cat, I think) which she was narrating (all
in an under-tone, of course) to her sister. When the
day broke, it so happened that this history was not
altogether finished, and that Scheherazade, in the
nature of things, could not finish it just then, since it
was high time for her to get up and be bowstrung - a
thing very little more pleasant than hanging, only a
trifle more genteel.
The king's curiosity, however, prevailing, I am sorry
to say, even over his sound religious principles, induced
him for this once to postpone the fulfilment of his
vow until next morning, for the purpose and with the
hope of hearing that night how it fared in the end
with the black cat (a black cat, I think it was) and
the rat.
The night having arrived, however, the Lady Sche.
herazade not only put the finishing stroke to the black
cat and the rat (the rat was blue), but before she well
knew what she was about found herself deep in the
intricacies of a narration, having reference (if I am not
altogether mistaken) to a pink horse (with green wings)
that went, in a violet manner, by clockwork, and was
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