BARMECIDE'S FEAST

BARMECIDE'S FEAST, an imaginary banquet, from the story in the Arabian Nights of one of the Barmecide family who put a series of empty dishes before a starving beggar, giving them magnificent names one after another as he did so. The beggar entered into the humour of his host, making as if he were eating heartily, and at last even getting so much flustered with his imaginary wine as to give him a good box on the ear, whereupon the prince, delighted with the poor fellow's patient humour, set a real dinner before him at once.