Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/300

278 not told thee that I am bidden abroad to-day? All the meat and drink in the house shall be thine, so thou despatch my affair and make haste to shave my head.’ ‘God requite thee with good!’ rejoined he. ‘Tell me what thou hast for my guests, that I may know.’ Quoth I, ‘I have five dishes of meat and ten fricasseed fowls and a roasted lamb.’ ‘Bring them out to me,’ said he, ‘that I may see them.’ So I had all this brought, and when he saw it, he said, ‘There lacks the wine.’ ‘I have a flagon or two in the house,’ answered I; and he said, ‘Have it brought out.’ So I sent for it, and he exclaimed, ‘God bless thee for a generous soul! But there are still the perfumes and the essences.’ So I brought him a box, containing fifty dinars’ worth of aloes-wood and ambergris and musk and other perfumes. By this, the time began to run short and my heart was straitened; so I said to him, ‘Take it all and finish shaving my head, by the life of Mohammed, whom God bless and preserve!’ ‘By Allah,’ said he, ‘I will not take it till I see all that is in it.’ So I made the servant open the box, and the barber threw down the astrolabe and sitting down on the ground, turned over the contents, till I was well-nigh distracted. Then he took the razor and coming up to me, shaved some little of my head and recited the following verse:

Then said he, ‘O my son, I know not whether to thank thee or thy father; for my entertainment to-day is all due to thy kindness and liberality, and none of my company is worthy of it; though I have none but men of consideration, such as Zentout the bath-keeper and Selya the corn-chandler and Silet the bean-seller and Akresheh the grocer and Hemid the scavenger and Said the camel-driver and Suweyd the porter and Abou Mukarish the bathman and