And so Schacabac lived with the Barmecide many years, and never again knew what it was to be hungry.
THE ENDLESS TALE.
In the Far East there was a great king who had no work to do. Every day, and all day long, he sat on soft cush-ions and lis-tened to stories. And no matter what the story was about, he never grew tired of hearing it, even though it was very long.
"There is only one fault that I find with your story," he often said: "it is too short."
All the story-tellers in the world were in-vit-ed to his palace; and some of them told tales that were very long indeed. But the king was always sad when a story was ended.
At last he sent word into every city and town and country place, offering a prize to any one who should tell him an endless tale. He said,—
"To the man that will tell me a story which shall last forever, I will give my fairest daugh-ter for his wife; and I will make him my heir, and he shall be king after me."
But this was not all. He added a very hard con-di-tion. "If any man shall try to tell such a story and then fail, he shall have his head cut off."
The king's daughter was very pretty, and there were many young men in that country who were willing to do anything to win her. But none of them wanted to lose their heads, and so only a few tried for the prize.