Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/358

342 seeing his friend the fisherman, with a full basket on his head, came down and opened the door to him. Abdallah entered and throwing himself on the baker, embraced him and wept, saying, ‘How dost thou, O my friend? Every day, I pass by thy shop and see it closed; so I asked thy neighbour, who told me that thou wast sick; and I enquired for thy house, that I might see thee.’ ‘God requite thee for me with all good!’ answered the baker. ‘Nothing ails me; but it was told me that the king had taken thee, for that certain of the folk had lied against thee and accused thee of being a thief; wherefore I feared and shut my shop and hid myself.’ ‘It is well,’ [sic] said Abdallah and told him all that had befallen him with the king and the Syndic of the jewellers, adding, ‘Moreover, the king hath given me his daughter to wife and made me his vizier: so do thou take what is in this basket to thy share and fear nothing.’

Then he left him, after having done away his fear from him, and returned with the empty basket to the king, who said to him, ‘O my son-in-law, it would seem thou hast not foregathered with thy friend the merman to-day.’ ‘I went to him,’ replied Abdallah; ‘but that which I got of him I gave to my friend the baker, to whom I owe kindness.’ ‘Who is this baker?’ asked the king; and the fisherman answered, ‘He is a benevolent man, who did with me thus and thus in the days of my poverty and never neglected me a single day nor vexed my spirit.’ Quoth the king, ‘What is his name?’ ‘His name is Abdallah the baker,’ replied the fisherman; ‘and my name is Abdallah of the land and that of my friend the merman Abdallah of the sea.’ ‘And my name, also, is Abdallah,’ rejoined the king; ‘and the servants of God are all brethren. So send and fetch thy friend the baker, that I may make him my vizier of the left.’