Curiosities of Olden Times
crack with the palm of his hand upon the cheek. The rice fell out of his mouth upon the imperial lap, some, it is surmised, descended the imperial red-lane. Another slap accomplished the relief of the monarch, and set the jaw once more in working order. At the same moment the servants screamed at the outrage committed upon the sacred majesty of the emperor, the nobles drew their swords to avenge it, and the priests converted their prayers for the recovery of their king into curses on the head of him who had sacrilegiously raised his hand to violate his divinity. Poor Vorburg would have been made into mincemeat, had not the emperor providentially recovered his breath in time to administer a reproof to his over-zealous subjects. He acknowledged the relief afforded him by the stranger by a present of a thousand rupees.
A tailor had a son who was half-witted. The father was out one day, and the child, who was left in the house, after the manner of children, looked about him in quest of some mischief which he might perpetrate. A pair of elegant breeches, just completed by his father, and designed for the legs of a nobleman, hung suspended from the wall. The child made a figured pattern upon the amber silk with his finger, dipped at intervals in the ink-pot. The mother was the first to discover the transformation of the breeches, and, not regarding the alteration in the same light as did her child, caught up the yard-measure and administered a castigation to the
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