“That is exactly my adventure of last night,” interrupted Mangogul: “for I seldom pass a night without dreaming. It is a family disease; and we dream from father to son, since the Sultan Togrul, who dream’d in 743,500,000,002, and began the custom. Now, madam, last night you appeared to me,” says he to Mirzoza. “ ’Twas your skin, your arms, your breast, your neck, your shoulders, this firm flesh, this easy shape, this incomparable Embonpoint, in a word it was yourself; excepting this circumstance, that instead of that charming face, that adorable head which I expected to find, I found myself nose to nose with the snout of a Dutch pug.

“I scream’d out dreadfully; my chamberlain Kotluk ran to me, and ask’d me what was the matter. ‘Mirzoza,’ answered I, half asleep, ‘has just now undergone the most hideous metamorphosis. She is become a Dutch dog.’ Kotluk did not think proper to awake me: he withdrew, and I fell asleep again: but I can assure you that I knew you wonderfully well, your body with a dog’s head. Will Bloculocus give me the explanation of this phenomenon?”