Page:Tales from the Arabic, Vol 1.djvu/280

255 invoked God’s mercy on him. Then he got him again that which he had sold of lands and houses and what not else and became once more in good case. Moreover, his friends returned to him and he entertained them some days.

Then said he to them one day, ‘There was with us bread and the locusts ate it; so we put in its place a stone, a cubit long and the like broad, and the locusts came and gnawed away the stone, because of the smell of the bread.’ Quoth one of his friends (and it was he who had given him the lie concerning the dog and the bread and milk), ‘Marvel not at this, for mice do more than that.’ And he said, ‘Go to your houses. In the days of my poverty, I was a liar [when I told you] of the dog’s climbing upon the shelf and eating the bread and spoiling the milk; and to-day, for that I am rich again, I say sooth [when I tell you] that locusts devoured a stone a cubit long and a cubit broad.’ They were confounded at his speech and departed from him; and the youth’s good flourished and his case was amended. Nor,” added the vizier, “is this stranger or more extraordinary than the story of the king’s son who fell in love with the picture.”

Quoth the king, “Belike, if I hear this story, I shall gain wisdom from it; so I will not hasten in the slaying of this vizier, nor will I put him to death before the thirty days have expired.” Then he gave him leave to withdraw, and he went away to his own house.