The Sultan was not ignorant, that the young lords of the court had private lodges; but he was lately informed, that those retreats were likewise used by some senators. He was much surprised at this. “What do they do there?” said he to himself. (For in this volume he will keep up the custom of monology, which he contracted in the first.) 1 “I should think, that a man, whom I have entrusted with the tranquillity, fortune, liberty, and lives of my people, ought not to have a private lodge. But perhaps a senator’s private lodge is quite different from that of a Petit-Maître. Can a magistrate, before whom the interests of the greatest of my subjects are discussed, who holds the fatal urn, out of which he is to draw the widow’s lot, can he, I say, forget the dignity of his state, and the importance of his duty; and while Cochin fatigues his lungs in vain by carrying the cries of the orphan to his ear, can he be studying subjects of gallantry, which are to be ornaments over the door of a place of secret debauchery? That cannot be.⁠—However, let us see.”