Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/104

86 top of his finger and pulling it off in haste, said, ‘Thou hast made a mistake, O master.’ And threw it to him, saying, ‘It is too strait for my finger.’ ‘O merchant,’ asked the jeweller, “shall‘shall [sic] I make it larger?’ ‘Not so,’ replied Kemerezzeman; ‘take it as a gift and give it to one of thy women. Its worth is trifling, some five hundred dinars; so it boots not to fashion it over again.’ Then he brought out to him another stone worth seven hundred dinars and said to him, ‘Set this.’ Moreover, he gave him thirty dinars and gave each of his journeymen two. Quoth Ubeid, ‘O my lord, we will take the price of the ring, when we have made it.’ But Kemerezzeman said, ‘This is for the chasing, and the price of the ring remains over.’ So saying, he went away, leaving the jeweller and his men amazed at the excess of his generosity.

Presently the jeweller returned home and said to his wife, ‘O Helimeh,’ [for that was her name,] ‘never did I set eyes on a more generous than this young man, and as for thee, thy luck is good, for he hath given me the ring without price, saying, “Give it to one of thy women.”’ And he told her what had passed between himself and Kemerezzeman, adding, ‘Methinks this youth is none of the sons of the merchants, but that he is of the sons of the kings and sultans.’ The more he praised him, the more she waxed in passion and longing and love-distraction for him. So she took the ring and put it on her finger, whilst the jeweller made another for Kemerezzeman, a little larger than the first. When he had finished it, she put it on her finger, under the first, and said, ‘Look, O my lord, how well the two rings show on my finger! I wish they were both mine.’ ‘Patience,’ answered he. ‘It may be I shall buy thee this second one.’ Then he lay that night and on the morrow he took the ring and went to his shop.

As for Kemerezzeman, as soon as it was day, he betook himself to the barber’s wife and gave her two hundred