lord, you have grown pale. Have you anything on your mind? Is the king displeased or have you been treated with disrespect by your children? Or have you conceived a craving for something?" "Yes, I have a craving." "Tell me what it is, my lord." "Can you keep a secret?" "Yes, I will be silent about any cravings that ought to be kept secret." [385] But even so, through fear of wasting his substance he had not the courage to tell her, but being repeatedly pressed by her he said, "My dear, one day I saw the sub-treasurer eating rice porridge prepared with ghee, honey, and powdered sugar, and from that day I have had a craving to eat the same kind of porridge." "Poor wretch, are you so badly off? I will cook porridge enough for all the inhabitants of Benares." Then he felt just as if he had been struck on the head with a stick. Being angry with her he said, "I am well aware that you are very rich. If it comes from your family, you may cook and give rice porridge to the whole city." "Well then I will make and cook enough for the dwellers in a single street." "What have you to do with them? Let them eat what belongs to them." "Then I will make enough for seven households taken at random here and there." "What are they to you?" "Then I will cook it for the attendants in this house." "What are they to you?" "Well, then, I will cook for our kinsfolk only." "What are they to you?" "Then I will cook, my lord, for you and me." "And pray who are you? It is not allowable in your case." "I will cook it for you only, my lord." "Pray do not cook it for me: if you cook it in the house, a lot of people will look for it. But just give me a measure of husked rice, a quartern of milk, a pound of sugar, a pot of honey and a cooking vessel, and going into the forest I will there cook and eat my porridge." She did so, and bidding a slave take it all he ordered him to go and stand in such and such a place. Then sending the slave forward, all alone he made himself a veil and in this disguise he went there and by the river side at the foot of a shrub he had an oven made and firewood and water brought to him and he said to the slave, "Go and stand in yonder road and, if you see anyone, make a sign to me, and when I call you come back to me." Sending off the slave he made a fire and cooked his porridge. At that moment Sakka, king of heaven, contemplating the splendid city of the gods, ten thousand leagues in extent, [386] and the golden street sixty leagues long, and Vejayanta reared a thousand leagues high, and Sudhamma compassing five hundred leagues, and his throne of yellow marble, sixty leagues in extent, and his white umbrella with its golden wreath, five leagues in circumference, and his own person accompanied with a glorious array of