Page:Ali Baba, or, The forty thieves (1).pdf/16

 by it very often to be certain that he should know it again.

He then returned to the forest and ordered his troop to go into the town, and buy nineteen mules and thirty-eight large jars, one full of oil, and the rest empty.

In two or three days the jars were bought, and all things in readiness, and the captain having put a man into each jar properly armed, the jars being rubbed on the outside with oil, and the covers having holes bored in them for the men to breathe through, loaded his mules, and in the habit of an oil-merchant, entered the town in the dusk of the evening. He proceeded to the street where Ala Baba dwelt, and found him sitting in the porch of his house. “Sir,” [sic] said he to Ali Baba, “I have brought this oil a great way to sell, and am too late for this day's market, as I am quite a stranger in this town, will you do me the favour to let me put my mules into your court-yard, and direct me where I may lodge to night?”

Ali Baba, who was a good-natured man, welcomed the pretended oil-merchant very kindly, and offered him a bed in his own house; audand [sic] having ordered the mules to