'Well, this is better than living in a dark cellar twenty years, with nothing to do but walk up and down, sleep, and consume dates and Ismidt wine.'

'Yes!' says she.

'Twenty years!' said I: 'How did you bear it?'

'I was not closs,' says she.

'Did you never suspect that there was a world outside that cellar?' said

I.

'Never,' says she, 'or lather, yes: but I did not suppose that it was this world, but another where he lived.'

'He who?'

'He who spoke with me.'

'Who was that?'