I bade her proceed.

She curled herself up in her favourite attitude on the sofa and began.
I did not allow her to finish that tale.

Had I done so, I should have been a monster of depravity.

Compared with it the worst of Scheherazade's, in Burton's translation, were milk and water for a nunnery.

She seemed nonplussed when I told her to stop.
"Are oriental ladies in the habit of telling such stories ?" I asked.
"Why, yes," she replied with a candid air of astonishment.