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Day broke at last: and he took his breakfast quietly with the first-class patients. It consisted of cool tea in small basins instead of cups, and table-spoons instead of tea-spoons; and thick slices of stale bread thinly buttered. A few patients had gruel or porridge instead of tea.

He could now carry the news into the rich palace that the marble Psyche was finished. He betook himself thither, strode through the open courtyard where the waters ran splashing from the dolphin's jaws into the marble basins, where the snowy lilies and the fresh roses bloomed in abundance.

'Blessings on him who invented sleep, said Sancho. But the great inventor was he who discovered mattresses and sheets and blankets. These two unfortunates no doubt slept; but in the morning they were weary, comfortless, and exhausted. Towels and basins were brought to them, and then they prepared themselves to watch through another day.

There was a basin of lard and several basins of meal in the background. I stood a while and gazed at these eatables; but as I had no money wherewith to buy, I turned quickly away and continued my tramp. I went very slowly, passed by Majorstuen, went on, always on it seemed to me for hours, and came at length at Bogstad's wood. I turned off the road here, and sat down to rest.

They surrounded it in an instant, and were quick to admire every detail the great horse with his shaggy mane on top, the tiny mug hung at the faucets for wayfarers, the wide trough for horses and cows, and the four little basins for dogs and birds. "This is the model of the fountain you are to earn," said their new friend pleasantly. "You may keep it in your schoolroom as a reminder."

The banks of the other affluents excepting some of those which discharge their waters into the great lakes then either retained their woods, or had been so long clear of them that the torrents had removed most of the disintegrated and loose rock in their upper basins.

There are long, straight, sloping troughs through which the water runs like a mill-race. There are huge basins into which the water rumbles over a ledge, as if some one were pouring it very steadily out of a pitcher, and from which it glides away without a ripple, flowing over a smooth pavement of rock which shelves down from the shallow foot to the deep head of the pool.

The furniture of the house consists mainly of boxes, containing the wealth of Gray Shirt, in clothes, mirrors, etc. One corner of the room is taken up by great calabashes full of some sort of liquor, and there is an ivory bundle chair, a hanging mirror, several rusty guns, and a considerable collection of china basins and jugs. Evidently Gray Shirt is rich.

One of the young men observing that it was late, said to the old man, "You do not bring us that with which we may acquit ourselves of our duty." At these words the old man arose, and went into a closet, and brought out thence upon his head ten basins, one after another, all covered with black stuff; he placed one before every gentleman, together with a light.

'Behold! he would exclaim, 'is not this elegantly-moulded idol worthy of the place of honour in this sumptuous mansion which my presence defiles to such an extent that twelve basins of rose-water will not remove the stain? Are not its eyes more delicate than the most select of almonds? and is not its stomach rounder than the cupolas upon the high temple at Peking?