विक्रम चरित (उज्जैन सम्राट् विक्रमादित्य - पराक्रम, न्याय एवं ३२ पुतलियों की कथा सटीक)

24 preserve your friendship, so that you may, if I can achieve it, depart hence in peace." The warrior listened to the king with much attention, and then fell into a violent fit of laughter, which surprised all present. As soon as he had regained his gravity he said, "I pray your majesty to consi- der whether it would be sensible in me to accept of the queen in lieu of my wife. The queen is to me a mother— neither more nor less. I believe your majesty knows, or at least ought to know, that we are taught by divine law to consider our queen, our tutors' wives, our wives' mothers, and the mother who gave us birth, as standing one and all in the same relation to us—that of mother. How, then, can I take the queen to supply the place of my wife?" At this remonstrance the king became pale with shame, and suffered much inwardly for having committed so grave and serious an error. The warrior, observing the sudden effect produced by him, burst into another fit of laughter, and tried to infuse courage into the monarch. He said, "My worthy and renowned sovereign, I beg your majesty will not be surprised if I disclose to you now the deceit I practised on your majesty, and the causes which led me into it. But before I proceed to relate them, your majesty must grant me your full pardon." , "I will on no account refuse you my pardon," roplied the king, "whether justly or not." "Your majesty must know, then," said the individual who had so long palmed himself off as a brave warrior of high rank and renown, and who had made the king and his whole court tremble before him, "Your majesty must know, then, that I am a Bahooroopee, and reached this city about a month ago. I used all the wit I was possessed of, to no purpose, in endeavouring to se- cure your majesty's patronage to the performance of the peculiar plays that are involved in the calling I pursue. Being thus deprived of every means by which to turn an honest pice, and all the avenues being shut against me, I was induced to have recourse to the deception I have practised on your majesty." The king could not possibly