Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/308

280 him yesternight and how many dishes he cooks every day.’ So they asked him of this and he said, ‘Every day I cook you five dishes for the morning and the like for the evening meal,evening-meal, [sic] lentils and rice and broth and fricassee and sherbet of roses, and [yesternight ye sought of me] a sixth dish and a seventh, to wit, rice dressed with honey and saffron and cooked pomegranate-seed.’ And the slaves said, ‘Right.’ Then said Delileh, ‘Take him in, and if he knows the kitchen and the larder, he is indeed your cousin; but, if not, kill him.’

Now the cook had a cat, which he had brought up, and whenever he entered, it would stand at the door of the kitchen and spring on his shoulders, as soon as he went in. So, when Ali entered, the cat saw him and jumped on his shoulders; but he threw it off and it ran before him to the door of the kitchen and stopped there. He guessed that this was the kitchen-door; so he took the keys and seeing one with traces of feathers thereon, knew it for the key of the kitchen and opened the door therewith. Then he entered and setting down the greens, went out again, guided by the cat, which ran before him and stopped at another door. He guessed that this was the larder and seeing one of the keys with marks of grease thereon, knew it for the key and opened the door therewith; whereupon quoth the slaves, ‘O Delileh, were he a stranger, he had not known the kitchen and the larder, nor had he been able to distinguish the keys thereof from the rest; verily, he is our cousin Saadullah.’ Quoth she, ‘He knew the places by the cat and distinguished the keys, one from the other, by their appearance: but this imposeth not upon me.’ Then he returned to the kitchen, where he cooked the morning-meal and carrying Zeyneb’s tray up to her apartment, saw all the stolen clothes hanging up; after which he went down and carried Delileh her tray and gave the slaves and the dogs their ration. The like he did at