One Sidi Norman having married, as the custom was, without ever having seen his bride, was agreeably surprised, when the veil was removed, at finding her dazzlingly beautiful.  He enfolded her in his arms with joy unspeakable, and so the honeymoon began.  Short dream of bliss; she became capricious at once, and seven devils at least seemed to have nestled in her lovely bosom.  Sid was touchy himself, and not the man to bear with such humors.  Every day she sat at his bountiful board, and, instead of partaking the food which he set before her, she would daintily and mincingly pick out a few grains of rice with the point of a bodkin.  Sid asked her what she meant by such conduct, and whether his table was not well supplied.  To this she deigned no reply.  When she ate no rice, she would choke down a few crumbs of bread, not enough for a sparrow.  His indignation was aroused, but his curiosity also.  He looked daggers; but he was a still man, kept his counsel to himself, and set himself to study out the solution of this problem.

One night, when his wife stole away from his side,—­she thought he was asleep, did she?—­he followed her with the stealthiness of a cat; and, oh horrible! tracked her steps to a graveyard, where she began to cut and carve; and he then discovered, to his great loathing, that he had been married to a ghoul!

Amina came home after a good feast.  Sid was snoring away, apparently in the profound depths of sleep, hiding away from any Caudle lectures.  He was about as sound asleep as a weasel.  Breakfast passed off most charmingly without a word said by any one; and he walked round to the khan to scrutinize some figs.

‘How does the lady?’ said Ben Hadad, sarcastically.

‘Very well indeed, I thank you,’ replied Sid.

The dinner-bell rang, down they sat, and out came the bodkin.  It did not, however, ‘his quietus make.’

‘My dear,’ he said, smothering up his Arabian fury, ’do you not like this bill of fare, or does the sight of me take away your taste for food?  Could you obtain a better meal even at the Bagdad St. Nicholas?’

No answer.

‘All well,’ said he; ’I suppose that this food is not so toothsome to you as dead men’s flesh!’

Thunder and furies!  A more dreadful domestic scene was never beheld.  The lovely Amina turned black in the face, her eyes bulged out of her head, she foamed at the mouth, and, seizing a goblet of water, dashed it into the face of the unfortunate man.

‘Take that,’ said she, ‘and learn to mind your own business.’  Whereupon he became a dog, and a miserable dog at that.

Many adventures he then had.  For full particulars, see the Arabian Nights.  He used to fight for a bone, or lick up a mouthful from a gutter.  He had not the spirit to prick up his ears, or to wag or curl up his tail, if he had one—­for, shortly after his transformation, the end of it was wedged into a door by his wife, and he was cur-tailed.