The Sultan levelled his ring at her. A loud burst of laughter, which seized Alcina at some comical saying of her husband, was suddenly cut short by the operation of the ring; and immediately a murmuring noise was heard under her petticoats. "Well, now I am titled. Truly I am glad on't. Nothing like having a rank. If my first advices had been heeded, I should have been provided with something better than an Emir: but yet an Emir is better than nothing." At these words all the ladies quitted the game, to seek from what quarter the voice issued. This movement made a great noise. "Silence," says Mangogul, "this deserves attention." They obeyed, and the Toy continued. "One would be apt to think, that a husband is a guest of great importance, by the precautions which are taken to receive him. What preparatives! What profusion of myrtle water! Another fortnight of this regimen would have demolished me. I had disappear'd, and the Emir might have sought lodgings elsewhere, or have shipped me off for the island Jonquille." Here my author says, that all the ladies grew pale, look'd at each other in deep silence, and grew vastly serious; which he ascribes to their fear, lest the conversation should grow warm, and become general. "Yet," continued Alcina's Toy, "in my opinion the Emir did neither require nor stand in need of so many formalities: but I must still acknowledge the prudence of my mistress. She guarded against the worst, and I was treated for the great lord as for his little page." The Toy was on the point of continuing its extravagant harangue, when the Sultan, observing that this strange scene shock'd the modest Manimonbanda, interrupted the orator by turning off the ring. The Emir had vanish'd at the first words of his wife's Toy. Alcina, without being disconcerted, pretended to take a nap: mean while the ladies whispered that she had the vapours. "Yes," says a _Petit-maitre_, "---- Vapours: Ch----y calls them hysterics, as much as to say, things which come from the lower region. For this case he has a divine elixir; it is a principle, principiating, principiated, which revives----which----I will propose it to the lady." The company laugh'd at this gibberish, and our Cynic resumed. "Nothing more true, ladies: I, who speak, have used it for a deperdition of substance." "A deperdition of substance, good marquiss," said a young person, "pray what is that?" "Madam," replied the marquiss, "it is one of those casual accidents which happen----but every body knows it."