Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/238

216 my lord, do not beat me, and I will tell thee the truth.” Whereupon the Vizier stopped the beating and said, “Speak the truth.” Quoth the eunuch, “Know then that we did enter the shop of a cook, who was dressing pomegranate-seed, and he set some of it before us; by Allah, I never ate the like of it in my life, nor did I ever taste aught nastier than that which is before us!” Bedreddin’s mother was enraged at this and said to the eunuch, “Thou must go back to the cook and fetch us a dish of his pomegranate-seed and show it to thy master, that he may say which is the better, his or mine.” “Good,” answered he. So she gave him a dish and half a dinar, and he returned to the shop and said to Bedreddin, “We have made a wager about thy cookery in our lord’s household, for they have pomegranate-seed there also; so give me half a dinar’s worth of thy confection and let it be of thy best, for I have eaten my bellyful of stick on account of thy cookery.” Bedreddin laughed and answered, “By Allah, none can dress this dish aright but myself and my mother, and she is far away.” Then he filled the dish with pomegranate-seed and finishing it off with musk and rose-water, gave it to the eunuch, who hastened back with it and delivered it to Bedreddin’s mother. No sooner had she tasted it and remarked the excellence of its flavour and cookery, than she knew who had dressed it and shrieked and fell down in a swoon, to the amazement of the Vizier, who sprinkled rose-water on her, till she came to herself and said, “If my son be yet of this world, none made this conserve but he! Without doubt, this cook is my son Bedreddin Hassan, for none knew how to dress this dish but he and I, and I taught him.” The Vizier rejoiced greatly at her words, and said, “O how I long to see my brother’s son! I wonder if the days will indeed reunite us with him! But it is to God alone that we look for reunion with him.” Then he went out forthright and said to his men, “Let