There is a city called Growing City on the earth’s surface. In it lived a merchant named Strong-Tooth who directed the whole administration. So long as he handled city business and royal business, all the inhabitants were satisfied. Why spin it out? Nobody ever saw or heard of his like for cleverness. For there is much wisdom in the proverb:

Suppose he minds the king’s affairs,

The common people hate him;

And if he plays the democrat,

The prince will execrate him:

So, since the struggling interests

Are wholly contradictory,

A manager is hard to find

Who gives them both the victory.

While he occupied this position, he once had a daughter married. To the wedding he invited all the townspeople and the king’s entourage, paid them much honor, feasted them, and regaled them with gifts of garments and the like. And when the wedding was over, he conducted the king home with his ladies and showed him reverence.

Now the king had a house-cleaning drudge named Bull, who took a seat that did not belong to him—this in the very palace, and in the presence of the king’s professor. So Strong-Tooth administered a cuffing and drove him out. From that moment the humiliation so rankled in Bull’s inner soul that he had no rest even at night. Yet he thought: “After all, why should I grow thin? It does me no good. For I cannot possibly hurt him. And there is sense in the saying:

Indulge no angry, shameless wish

To hurt, unless you can:

The chick-pea, hopping up and down,

Will crack no frying-pan.”

Now one morning, as he was sweeping near the bed where the king lay half awake, he said: “What impudence! Strong-Tooth kisses the queen.” When the king heard this, he jumped up in a hurry, crying: “Come, come, Bull! Is that thing true that you were muttering? Has the queen been kissed by Strong-Tooth?”

“O King,” answered Bull, “I was awake all night because I am passionately fond of gambling. So sleep overpowered me even when I was busy with my sweeping. I do not know what I said.”

But the jealous king thought: “Yes, he has free entrance to my palace. So has Strong-Tooth. Perhaps he actually saw the fellow hugging the queen. For the proverb says:

Whate’er a man desires, sees, does

In broad daylight,

Still mindful, he will say or do

Asleep at night.

And again:

Whatever secrets, good or ill,

Men in their bosoms keep,

Are soon betrayed when they are drunk

Or talking in their sleep.

In any case, what doubt can there be where a woman is concerned?

With one she tries the gossip’s art;

Her glances with a second flirt;

She holds another in her heart:

Whom does she love enough to hurt?

And again:

The logs will glut the hungry fire,

The rivers glut the sea’s desire,

And Death with life be glutted, when

The flirt has had enough of men.

No chance, no corner dark,