Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/333

303 interceded with Ali] and she appointed him her guardian to consent to her marriage with the sharper, to whom he gave the Jew’s palace and all its contents, saying, ‘Ask a boon of me.’ Quoth Ali, ‘I beg of thee to let me stand on thy carpet and eat of thy table.’ And the Khalif said, ‘O Ali, hast thou any lads?’ ‘Yes,’ answered he, ‘I have forty lads; but they are in Cairo.’ ‘Send to Cairo,’ said the Khalif, ‘and fetch them hither. But hast thou a lodging for them?’ ‘No,’ replied Ali; and Hassan Shouman said, ‘O Commander of the Faithful, I make him a present of my barrack, with all that is therein.’ But the Khalif answered, saying, ‘O Hassan, thy lodging is thine own.’ And bade his treasurer give the court architect ten thousand dinars, that he might build Ali a hall with four estrades and forty sleeping-closets for his lads. Then said he, ‘O Ali, hast thou any further wish, that we may order its fulfilment?’ ‘O King of the age,’ answered Ali, ‘be thou my intercessor with Delileh the Crafty that she give me her daughter Zeyneb to wife and take the Jew’s robe and gear in lieu of dower.’ Delileh accepted the Khalif’s intercession and took the robe and dish and what not, and they drew up the marriage contracts between Ali and Zeyneb and Kemer, the Jew’s daughter and the broker’s daughter and the maid. Moreover, the Khalif assigned him stipends and gratuities and a table morning and evening, together with allowances for fodder and what not.

Then Ali fell to making ready for the wedding festivities and after thirty days, he wrote a letter to his comrades in Cairo, wherein he gave them to know of the favours that the Khalif had bestowed upon him and said, ‘I have married four girls and needs must ye come to the wedding.’ So, after awhile, the forty lads arrived and they held high festival. Moreover, he lodged them in his barrack and entreated them with the utmost honour and presented