Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/138

118 me and I will show it to thee.’ So he followed him, till he brought him to Abdurrehman’s house and said to him, ‘This is the house of the wedding; enter and fear not, for there is no doorkeeper at the door of the festival.’

So he entered and Kemerezzeman knew him and told his father, who said, ‘O my son, leave him awhile: belike he is hungry; so let him eat his fill and recover himself, and after we will look to him.’ So they waited till Ubeid had eaten his fill and washed his hands and drunk coffee and sherbets of sugar flavoured with musk and ambergris and was about to go out, when Abdurrehman sent one after him, who said to him, ‘Come, O stranger, and speak with the merchant Abdurrehman.’ ‘Who is he?’ asked Ubeid; and the man said, ‘He is the master of the feast.’ So the jeweller turned back, thinking that he meant to give him largesse, and coming up to Abdurrehman, saw his friend Kemerezzeman and was like to lose his senses for shame before him. But Kemerezzeman rose to him and embracing him, saluted him and they both wept sore. Then he seated him by his side and Abdurrehman said to his son, ‘Lack-courtesy that thou art, this is no way to receive friends! Send him first to the bath and send after him a suit of clothes that shall befit him; and after sit with him and talk with him.’ So he called some of his men and bade them carry the jeweller to the bath and sent him a suit of clothes of the choicest, worth a thousand dinars. Accordingly they carried him to the bath, where they washed his body and clad him in a suit, and he became as he were Provost of the Merchants.

Meanwhile, the bystanders questioned Kemerezzeman of him, saying, ‘Who is this and whence knowest thou him?’ Quoth he, ‘This is my friend, who lodged me in his house and to whom I am indebted for favours without number, for that he entreated me with exceeding kindness. He is a man of fortune and condition and by trade a