Page:Tales from the Arabic, Vol 1.djvu/95

75 acquainted with his case and that which had betided him. The old man grieved sore for him, when he heard his story, and set food before him. So he ate and the old man said to him, ‘Abide here with me, so I may make thee my steward and factor over a farm I have here, and thou shall have of me five dirhems a day.’ ‘God make fair thy reward,’ answered the merchant, ‘and requite thee with benefits!’

So he abode in this employ, till he had sowed and reaped and threshed and winnowed, and all was sheer in his hand and the owner appointed neither inspector nor overseer, but relied altogether upon him. Then he bethought himself and said, ‘I misdoubt me the owner of this grain will not give me my due; so I were better take of it, after the measure of my hire; and if he give me my due, I will restore him that which I have taken.’ So he took of the grain, after the measure of that which fell to him, and hid it in a privy place. Then he carried the rest to the old man and meted it out to him, and he said to him, ‘Come, take [of the grain, after the measure of] thy hire, for which I agreed with thee, and sell it and buy with the price clothes and what not else; and though thou abide with me half a score years, yet shall thou still have this wage and I will acquit it to thee thus.’ Quoth the merchant in himself, ‘Indeed, I have done a foul thing in that I look it without his leave.’

Then he went to fetch that which he had hidden of the grain, but found it not and returned, perplexed and sorrowful, to the old man, who said to him, ‘What aileth