Page:The Perfumed Garden - Burton - 1886.djvu/47

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The buffoon being thus close to the door, the Vizir, Hamdonna's husband, arrived, who said to him, "Why do I see you here, O Bahloul?" And he answered, "O my lord, I was passing through this street, when I was overcome by a great thirst. A negress came and brought me a cup of water. The cup slipped from my hands and got broken. Then our Lady Hamdonna took my robe, which the Sultan our Master had given me as indemnification."

Then said the Vizir, "Let him have his robe." Hamdonna at this moment came out, and her husband asked her whether it was true that she had taken the robe in payment for the cup. Hamdonna then cried, beating her hands together, "What have you done, O Bahloul?" He answered, "I have talked to your husband the language of my folly; talk to him, you, the language of thy wisdom." And she, enraptured with the cunning he had displayed, gave him his robe back, and he departed.