La Dama O el Tigre? y Otros Cuentos

In the very olden time there lived a semi-barbaric king, whose ideas, though somewhat polished and sharpened by the progressiveness of distant Latin neighbors, were still large, florid, and untrammeled, as became the half of him which was barbaric. He was a man of exuberant fancy, and, withal, of an authority so irresistible that, at his will, he turned his varied fancies into facts. He was greatly given to self-communing, and, when he and himself agreed upon anything, the thing was done. At this point the question is posed to the reader, Did the tiger come out of that door, or did the lady? The question is not answered, and is left as a thought experiment regarding human nature.