Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/320

308 dyer and saying, ‘O master, what are the names of these colours?’ Quoth he, ‘This is red and that yellow and the other green,’ and so on with the rest of the colours. And they fell to bringing him stuffs and saying to him, ‘Dye this for us like this and that and take what thou seekest [to thy hire].’ When he had made an end of dyeing the king’s stuffs, he took them and went up with them to the divan; and when the king saw them he rejoiced in them and bestowed abundant largesse on the dyer. Moreover, all the troops brought him stuffs, saying, ‘Dye for us thus and thus;’ and he dyed for them to their wish, and they threw him gold and silver. On this wise his fame spread abroad and his shop was called the Sultan’s dyery. Good came in to him at every door and he became the owner of slaves, male and female, and amassed store of wealth. None of the other dyers dared say a word to him, but they used to come to him, kissing his hands and excusing themselves to him for the affronts they had done him aforetime and offering themselves to him as journeymen; but he would none of them.

Meanwhile Abousir abode three days, prostrate and unconscious, in the chamber where Aboukir had left him, at the end of which time the doorkeeper of the khan, chancing to look at the chamber-door, observed that it was shut and bethought himself that he had seen and heard nothing of the two companions [for some time]. So he said to himself, ‘Belike they have made off, without paying the rent of the chamber, or perhaps they are dead, or what is to do with them?’ And he waited till sunset, when he went up to the chamber-door and heard the barber groaning within. He saw the key in the lock; so he opened the door and entering, found Abousir lying, groaning, and said to him, ‘No harm to thee: where is thy friend?’ ‘By Allah,’ answered Abousir, ‘I only came to my senses this day and called out; but none answered