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She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the

King of China declared "There is no help for it but that you be

hanged," the Reeve of the Sultan's Kitchen came forward and said,

"If thou permit me I will tell thee a tale of what befell me just

before I found this Gobbo, and, if it be more wondrous than his

story, do thou grant us our lives." And when the King answered

"Yes" he began to recount

The Reeve's Tale.