Types of Prose Narratives: A Text-Book for the Story WriterFansler, Harriott Ely
General
Types of Prose Narratives: A Text-Book for the Story Writer
Fansler, Harriott Ely
English prose literature; Storytelling
Instantly the carriage stopped and the driver presented himself before
Juan and said, "Oh, sir! I beg you to pardon me; I am the one who stole
the princess's ring. She was washing her hands in a dish one day and
took the ring off her hand, and then threw the water away. While I was
cleaning the garden I saw it and picked it up. Kindly forgive me, here
is the ring!" Juan did not take the ring, but said, "I forgive you now;
I thought you would not tell me anything about it, and I was going to
tell the king to have you killed, for I knew, that you were the one who
stole it; my book said so. As soon as we arrive at the palace, place
the ring under the stairs and cover it with a cocoanut shell." The
driver was very happy and promised to do everything he was commanded.
Juan was received with honors in the palace and when he was asked about
the ring, he told everything about the theft of it from the information
he had got from the driver and said, "My book tells me all of this and
says that now it is under a cocoanut shell under the stairs." Everybody
went down to look for it and they found it. Once more now Juan's
knowledge was talked of everywhere. According to the king's promise, he
was married to the princess. The marriage ceremony was celebrated with
much pomp and splendor, and many kings from different countries came to
attend it.
Once a neighbor king came to Juan's country. When he went to the
palace and met the other king, he said, "If your son-in-law is really
a prophet, I propose to you a wager. I have three watermelons in my
ship; one of them has one seed, the other has two, and the other has
three. Should your son-in-law guess which has one, which has two, and
which has three seeds, I will give you half of my kingdom. But if he
fails, you will have to give me half of yours." The king was well
pleased to hear the proposal, and being confident of Juan's knowledge,
he accepted it. Fortunately, while the two kings were conversing, the
vassals of the foreign king stood near the door of Juan's room and
talked about the watermelons. One of them said, "If I were the one to
guess I would say that the smallest has three seeds, the largest has
two, and the middle-sized has one, then I should be very rich and would
be as powerful a king as our master." Juan, after hearing all that the
men had said, went to his bed and pretended to be asleep. When the
foreign king had gone away, his father-in-law went to awake him in his
room, and told him everything about the challenge. Juan said that he
was afraid of no defiance so long as he had his book. The next morning,
when the king and he went to the boat, Juan told exactly the number
of seeds in each watermelon, according to what he had heard, after
reading, or rather feigning to read, some characters in his book. The
fruits were cut open then and it was found out that Juan was right. The
king, his father-in-law, was very happy and liked Juan very much, for
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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