Twice a week the favorite kept a drawing room. The preceding evening she named the women whom she would willingly see, and the Sultan gave the list of the men. The company always came richly dress’d. The conversation was either general, or particular. When the amorous history of the court fail’d of furnishing real diverting adventures, stories were invented, and necessity sometimes compelled them to run into bad tales; which were called a continuation of the Arabian nights entertainments. The men had the privilege of saying all the extravagant things that came into their heads, and the women that of knotting, while they gave ear to them. At these meetings, the Sultan and his favorite put themselves on a level with their subjects: their presence gave no sort of check to whatever could amuse; and people seldom found the time tedious. Mangogul had learned early in his life, that pleasures are not to be found above the foot of the throne; and no man descended from it with better grace, or knew how to put off majesty more apropos.

While he was surveying the private lodge of the Senator Hippomanes, Mirzoza waited for him in the rose-colour’d salon, with the youthful Zaide, the cheerful Leocris, the lively Serica, Amina and Benzaira, the wives of two Emirs, Orphisa the prude, and Vetula the great Seneschal’s lady, temporal mother of all the Bramins. It was not long before he appeared. He enter’d attended by count Hannetillon and the chevalier Fadaes. Alciphenor an old rake, and his disciple young Marmolin followed him; and two minutes after, arrived the Pacha Grifgrif, the Aga Fortimbek, and the Selictar Velvet-Paw. These were the most absolute Petits-Maîtres of the court. Mangogul call’d them together designedly. Having heard a thousand stories of their gallant exploits, he resolved to be informed in such a manner as might banish all future doubt. “Well, gentlemen,” says he to them, “ye whom nothing escapes, that passes in the empire of gallantry, what news from thence? how far are the Speaking Toys got.”

“Sir,” replied Alciphenor, “the racket they make increases daily; and if it continues, we shall soon not be able to hear ourselves. But nothing is so diverting as the indiscretion of Zobeida’s Toy. It has given her husband a catalogue of her adventures.”

“And a prodigious one,” says Marmolin: “it mentions five agas, twenty captains, almost an entire company of janissaries, twelve Bramins: and they say that I am named too, but that is a mere joke.”

“The best past of the affair is,” added Grifgrif, “that the affrighted husband ran away with his fingers in his ears.”

“This is quite horrible,” said Mirzoza.

“Yes, madam,” interrupted Fortimbek, “horrible, frightful, execrable.”

“More than all that, if you please,” replied the favorite, “to dishonor a woman upon hearsay.”

“Madam, it is literally true, Marmolin has not added one word to the story,” says Velvet-Paw.

“It is fact,” says Grifgrif.

“Good,” says Hannetillon, “there is an epigram already handed about concerning it, and an epigram is not made for nothing.”

“But why should Marmolin be safe from the prattle of the Toys? Cynara’s Toy has insisted on speaking in its turn, and to blend me with people, who do not stake their all. But how to help that? The right thing is not, to be disturbed at it,” says Velvet-Paw.

“You are right,” answered Hannetillon, and instantly fell to singing:

Mon bonheur fut si grand, que j’ai peine à le croire.2

“Count,” says Mangogul to Hannetillon, “then you have been particularly acquainted with Cynara?”

“Sir,” answered Velvet-Paw, “who doubts it? He has walk’d with her for more moons than one? they have been song’d; and all this would have lasted to this day, if he had not at length discovered that she was not handsome, and that she had a large mouth.”

“Allowed,” replied Hannetillon; “but that imperfection was ballanced by an uncommon agreeableness.”

“How long since this adventure?” ask’d the prude Orphisa.

“Madam,” replied Hannetillon, “its epoch is not present to my memory. I must have recourse to the chronological tables of my good fortune. There may be seen the day and minute: but ’tis a large volume, with which my servants amuse themselves in the antechamber.”

“Hold,” says Alciphenor; “I recollect that it was precisely a year after Grifgrif fell out with Madam la Seneschale. She has the memory of an angel, and can tell you exactly.”

“That nothing is more false than your date,” answered the Seneschal’s lady gravely. “ ’Tis well known that blockheads were never of my taste.”

“Yet, madam,” replied Alciphenor, “you will never persuade us, that Marmolin was excessively wise, when he was conducted into your apartment by the back stairs, whenever his highness summoned the Seneschal to council.”

“There can be no greater extravagance in my opinion,” added Velvet-Paw, “than to enter into a woman’s chamber by stealth, for nothing at all; for people thought nothing more of his visits than what was really fact, and madam was already in full enjoyment of that reputation of virtue, which she has so well supported since that time.”

“But that is an age ago,” says Fadaes. “It was pretty much about that same time that Zulica made a slip from the Selictar, who was her humble servant, to take possession of Grifgrif, whom she drop’d six months after; she is now got as far as Fortimbek. I am not sorry for my friend’s little stroke of good luck; I see her, I admire her, but entirely without any pretensions.”

“Yet Zulica,” says the favorite, “is very amiable. She has wit, taste, and something, I know not how, engaging in her countenance, which I should prefer to charms.”

“I grant that, madam,” answer’d Fadaes: “but she is maigre, has no neck, and her thigh is so skinny, that it raises one’s pity.”

“You are well acquainted with it, to be sure,” added the Sultana.

“Oh! madam,” replied Hannetillon, “you may guess that. I have visited Zulica but seldom, and yet I know as much of that affair as Fadaes.”

“I can easily believe you,” says the favorite.

“But apropos, might one ask Grifgrif,” says the Selictar, “if he has been long in possession of Zirphila. There is what you may call a pretty woman. She has an admirable shape.”

“And who doubts it!” added Marmolin.

“How happy is the Selictar,” continued Fadaes.

“I give you Fadaes,” interrupted the Selictar, “for the best provided gallant of the court. To my knowledge he has the Vizier’s wife, the two prettiest actresses of the opera, and an adorable Grisette, whom he keeps in his private lodge.”

“And I,” replied Fadaes, “would give up the Vizier’s wife, the two actresses and the Grisette, for one glance from a certain woman, with whom the Selictar is very well, and who has not the least suspicion that the world knows it;” and then stepping up to Leocris, says, “your blushes are ravishing.⁠—”

“Hannetillon was a long time wavering,” says Marmolin, “between Melissa and Fatima, two charming women. One day he was for Melissa the fair, the next for Fatima the nut-brown.”

“The poor man,” continues Fadaes, “was strangely embarassed: why did he not take them both?”

“So he did,” says Alciphenor.

Our Petits-Maîtres were, as you see, in a right cue not to stop here, when Zobeida, Cynara, Zulica, Melissa, Fatima and Zirphila sent in their names. This ill-timed circumstance disconcerted them for a moment; but they soon recover’d from their ruffle, and fell on other women, whom their detraction had hitherto spared, only because they had not time to tear them to pieces.

Mirzoza, quite out of patience at their discourses, said: “Gentlemen, considering the merit and probity in particular, which must needs be allowed ye, it cannot be doubted but that you have enjoyed all the good fortunes of which you boast. I must own nevertheless, that I would be very glad to hear the Toys of these ladies on this head; and that I would most heartily thank Brama, if he would deign to render justice to truth by their mouths.”

“That is to say,” replies Hannetillon, “that madam would desire to hear the same things twice over: well, to oblige her, we’ll repeat them.”

But Mangogul set about applying his ring in order of seniority: he began by Madame la Seneschale, whose Toy cough’d three times, and with a trembling and broken voice said: “To the great Seneschal I am indebted for the first fruits of my pleasures: but I had not been his property above six months, when a young Bramin gave my mistress to understand, that a woman can do no injury to her husband, while she thinks on him. I relished the moral, and thenceforward thought I might with a safe conscience admit a senator, then a privy counsellor, then a pontiff, then one or two masters of Requests, then a musician⁠—”

“And Marmolin?” says Fadaes.

“Marmolin,” replies the Toy, “I know him not, unless it be that young coxcomb, whom my lady ordered to be kick’d out of her house, for some insolence, the particulars of which I have forgot.”

Cynara’s Toy took up the discourse, and said: “Do you interrogate me concerning Alciphenor, Fadaes, and Grifgrif? I have indeed been pretty well served; but this is the first time that I ever heard these folks named. However, I shall get some account of them from Amalek the Emir, Telenor the Financier, or the Vizier Abdiram, who know the whole world, and are my good friends.”

“Cynara’s Toy is discreet,” says Hannetillon: “it mentions not Zarafis, Ahiram, the old Trebister, and the young Mahmoud, who is not made to be forgotten; nor does it accuse the least Bramin, though it has been running through the monasteries these twelve years.”

“I have received some visits in my life,” says Melissa’s Toy, “but not one from Grifgrif or Fortimbek, and much less still from Hannetillon.”

“My little heart of a Toy,” replied Grifgrif, “you are mistaken. You may disclaim Fortimbek and me, but as to Hannetillon, he is better with you than you allow. He has told me a word or two on the subject, and he is a spark of the greatest veracity in Congo, a better man than any of those whom you have known, and is still capable of establishing the reputation of a Toy.”

“The reputation of an impostor can no more escape him than his friend Fadaes,” says Fatima’s Toy with a sob. “What have I done to these monsters to dishonour me? The son of the Abyssinian Emperor came to Erguebzed’s court: I pleased him; he pursued me; but he would have fail’d of success, and I should have continued faithful to my husband whom I loved; had not the traitor Velvet-Paw and his base accomplice Fadaes corrupted my women, and introduced the young prince into my bath.”

The Toys of Zirphila and Zulica, who had the same cause to defend, spoke both at the same time, but with such rapidity, that it was extremely difficult to render each of them its due.

“Favors!” cried one⁠—

“To Velvet-Paw!” says the other⁠—

“Something may be said for Zinzim⁠—”

“Cerbelon⁠—”

“Bemengel⁠—”

“Agarias⁠—”

“The French slave Riqueli⁠—”

“The young Ethiopian Thezaca⁠—”

“But as for the insipid Velvet-Paw⁠—”

“The insolent Fadaes⁠—”

“I swear by Brama⁠—”

“I call the great Pagoda and the Genius Cucufa to witness⁠—”

“I know them not⁠—”

“I never had the least dealings with them.”

Zirphila and Zulica would have run on, God knows how far, if Mangogul had not turn’d off his ring: but as this magic ring ceased acting on them, their Toys closed their lips, and a profound silence succeeded the noise they made. Then the Sultan rose up, and darting furious looks on our young blockheads, said: “You have taken the liberty to defame women whom you never had the honour of coming near, and who hardly know your names. Who has made ye insolent enough to lie in my presence? Tremble, wretches.” At these words he grasped his scimitar: but the screams of the affrighted ladies stop’d his hand. “I was going,” says Mangogul, “to give ye the death which you have merited: but the ladies, whom you have injured, have a right to determine your fate: it shall depend on them, either to crush ye, or to let ye live. Speak, ladies, what are your commands?”

“That they live,” says Mirzoza, “and hold their tongues, if possible.”

“Live,” replies the Sultan, “these ladies permit it: but if ever you forget on what condition, I swear by my father’s soul⁠—”

Mangogul did not complete his oath; being interrupted by one of the gentlemen of his bedchamber, who inform’d him that the comedians were ready. This prince had imposed it on himself as a law never to retard the public diversions. “Let them begin,” says he, and immediately gave his hand to the favorite, whom he accompanied to her box.