"No," said she. "For fiery-mouthed stingers like you, it is out of the question. Leave this bed. You know the proverb:
The fool who does not know
His own resource, his foe,
His duty, time, and place,
Who sets a reckless pace,
Will by the wayside fall,
Will reap no fruit at all."
Thereupon he fell at her feet, repeating his request. And she agreed, since courtesy was her hobby, and since, when the story of that prince of sharpers, Muladeva, was being repeated to the king while she lay on a corner of the coverlet, she had heard how Muladeva quoted this verse in answer to the question of a certain damsel:
Whoever, angry though he be,
Has spurned a suppliant enemy,
In Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, he
Has scorned the Holy Trinity.
Recalling this, she agreed, but added: "However you must not come to dinner at a wrong place or time." "What is the right place and what is the right time?" he asked. "Being a newcomer, I am not au courant." And she replied: "When the king's body is mastered by wine, fatigue, or sleep, then you may quietly bite him on the feet. This is the right place and the right time." To these conditions he gave his assent.
In spite of this arrangement, the famished bun-
