Por tener un romance con la hija del rey un joven es sentenciado a un extrano castigo. En el centro del anfiteatro se halla ante dos puertas cerradas y debe elegir una de ellas. Tras una de las puertas hay un tigre que lo devorara en breves segundos. Tras la otra lo espera una bella dama para casarse con el. Mientras la muchedumbre espera ansiosa la decision del joven, el ve en las gradas a su amada princesa, que le senala una de las puertas. El joven se dispone a abrirla lentamente y Una lectura que no solo no te dejara impasible sino que te obligara a tomar una decision irrevocable. / 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.