"In point of instruction it is," replied Nathaniel, "but I shall briefly relate the conclusion to which the disputes among the brothers conducted. When they found agreement impossible, they mutually cited one another before the tribunal or the law. Each of them solemnly swore that he had received a ring immediately from his father's hand--as was the fact--after having obtained his father's promise to bestow it on him, as was also the fact. Each of them indignantly repudiated the supposition that such a father could have deceived him; and each declared, that, unwilling as he was to think uncharitably of his own brethren, he had no alternative left but that of branding them as impostors, forgers, and swindlers." "And what said the judge?" demanded Sal-ad-Deen; "I presume the final decision of the question hung upon his arbitration?" "Your highness is correct: the judge at once pronounced his award, which was definitive. 'You want,' said he, 'a satisfactory adjudication on this question, which you have contested among yourselves so long and so fruitlessly. Summon then your father before me: call him from the dead and let him speak; it is otherwise impracticable for me to come at the knowledge of his intentions. Do you think that I sit here for the purpose of expounding riddles and reconciling contradictions? Or do you, perhaps, expect that the true ring will by some miracle be compelled to bear oral testimony here in court to its own genuineness? But hold: I understand that the ring is endowed with the occult power of rendering its wearer amiable and faultless in the eyes of men. By that test I am willing to try it, and so to pronounce judgment. Which of you three, then, is the greatest object of love to the other two? You are silent. What! does this ring, which should awaken love in all, act with an inward influence only, not an outward? Does each of you love only himself? Oh, go! you are all alike deceivers or deceived: none of your rings is the true one. The true ring is probably lost; and to supply its place your father ordered three spurious ones for common use among you. If you will abide by a piece of advice instead of a formal decision, here is my counsel to you: leave the matter where it stands. If each of you has had a ring presented to him by his father, let each believe his own to be the real ring. Possibly your father might have grown disinclined to tolerate any longer the exclusiveness implied in the possession of a single ring by one member of a family; and, certainly, as he loved you all with the same affection, it could not gratify him to appear the oppressor of two by favouring one in particular. Let each of you therefore feel honoured by this all-embracing generosity of your parent; let each of you endeavour to outshine his brothers in the cultivation of every virtue which the ring is presumed to confer--assisting the mysterious influence supposed to reside in it by