Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/237

215 and so did Agib, though his belly was full of what he had already eaten and drunk. Now the conserve lacked sugar, so he took a piece of bread and dipped it therein and ate, but found it insipid, for that he was already surfeited, and exclaimed, “Faugh! what is this nasty mess?” “O my son,” said his grandmother, “dost thou find fault with my cookery? I cooked this myself, and there is not a cook in the land can compare with me, except it be thy father Bedreddin Hassan.” “O my lady,” replied Agib, “this thy dish is naught; for we saw but now in the city a cook who dresses pomegranate-seed, so that the very smell of it opens the heart and the taste would give a full man an appetite; and as for thy mess, compared with his, it is worth neither much nor little.” When his grandmother heard this, she was exceeding wroth and said to the eunuch, “Out on thee, dost thou corrupt my grandson and take him into cookshops?” The eunuch was frightened and denied, saying, “We did not enter the shop, but only saw it in passing.” “By Allah!” said Agib, “we went in and ate, and it was better than thine.” Then his grandmother rose and went and told her brother-in-law, who was incensed against the eunuch and sending for him, said to him, “Why didst thou take my son into a cookshop?” “We did not go in,” replied the eunuch. But Agib said, “We did go in and ate of pomegranate-seed, till we were full; and the cook gave us to drink of iced sherbet of sugar.” At this, the Vizier’s anger redoubled and he questioned the eunuch, but he still denied. Then said the Vizier, “If what thou sayest be true, sit down and eat before us.” So he sat down and tried to eat, but could not and threw away the morsel, saying, “O my lord, indeed I am full since yesterday.” By this, the Vizier knew that he had eaten at the cook’s and bade his slaves throw him down and beat him. So they drubbed him, till he roared for mercy and said, “O