Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/291

263 Khalif said, ‘Thou art indeed crafty and full of artifice.’ Whence she was dubbed Delileh the Crafty.

Then said he, ‘Why hast thou played all these tricks on the folk and wearied our hearts?’ Quoth she, ‘I did it not of desire for their goods, but because I had heard of the tricks which Ahmed ed Denef and Hassan Shouman played in Baghdad and said in myself, “I will do the like.” And behold, I have returned the folk their goods.’ But the ass-driver rose and said, ‘I invoke the law of God between her and me; for it sufficed her not to take my ass, but she must needs egg on the barber to pull out my teeth and cauterize me on both temples.’ The Khalif bade give him a hundred dinars and ordered the dyer the like, saying, ‘Go; set up thy dyery again.’ So they called down blessings on his head and went away. The Bedouin also took his clothes and horse and departed, saying, ‘It is forbidden to me to enter Baghdad and eat honey-fritters.’ And the others took their goods and went away.

Then said the Khalif, ‘Ask a boon of me, O Delileh!’ And she said, ‘My father was governor of the carrier-pigeons to thee and I know how to rear them, and my husband was town-captain of Baghdad. Now I wish to have the reversion of my husband and my daughter wishes to have that of her father.’ The Khalif granted their requests and she said, ‘I ask of thee that I may be portress of thy khan.’ Now he had built a khan of three stories, for the merchants to lodge in, and had assigned to its service forty slaves, which latter he had brought from the King of Suleimaniyeh, when he deposed him, and let make collars for them; and there was in the khan a cook-slave, who cooked for the slaves and fed the dogs. ‘O Delileh,’ said the Khalif, ‘I will write thee a patent of guardianship of the khan, and if aught be lost therefrom, thou shalt be answerable for it.’ ‘It is well,’ replied she;