_Twenty-eighth Trial of the Ring._ Olympia. "Rejoice, madam," says Mangogul, coming in to the favorite's appartment. "I bring you an agreeable piece of news. The Toys are a parcel of little fools, who know not what they say. Cucufa's ring can indeed make them speak, but not extort the truth from them." "And how has your highness caught them in a lye?" says the favorite. "You shall hear," answered the Sultan. "Selim promised you an account of all his adventures, and you make no doubt but that he has kept his word. Well then, I am just come from consulting a Toy, who accuses him of a naughty trick, which he has not confessed to you, and which most certainly he has not play'd, as it is quite contrary to his character. To tyrannize over a pretty woman, to lay her under contribution, on pain of military execution: can you discover Selim in this proceeding?" "Pray, why not, Sir?" replied the favorite. "There is no malice of this sort, of which Selim has not been capable: and if he has concealed the adventure which you have discovered, possibly it is, that he is reconciled to this Toy, that they are well together, and that he thought he might keep that peccadillo from me, without swerving from his promise." "The perpetual falsity of your conjectures," replied Mangogul, "ought to cure you of the disease of ever making any. There is nothing of what you imagine in the affair: it is one of the first flights of Selim's youthful days. It regards one of those women, who are gained in a minute, but are never kept long." "Madam," says Selim to the favorite, "in vain do I examine my self, I can recal nothing more to my memory; and at present I find my conscience quite clear." "Olympia," says Mangogul--"Ah! Prince," interrupted Selim, "I know the thing; but this little story is so old, that it is no wonder that it has escaped me."