Page:The Shaving of Shagpat (1856).djvu/316

302 his lengthiness of tongue, his esteem of his science over all other created things."

Then the Vizier Feshnavat said, "O Master of the Event, truly I could have laughed while this fellow mumbled, and I should have roared with laughter, but that a thought illumined my brain and lighted a path up the intricacies of action, solving perplexity; and I rushed upon him, and seized him, exclaiming, "In the name of Shagpat!"

So he fell on the knees of remonstrance, and lifted the hands up imploring; and I said, "Thou art a barber! confess that thing!"

Then he stammered with what speech was his, and I commanded him imperiously to follow me, and took him before the King, and accused him in the King's chamber of audience of the crime of barbercraft, and of being the barber that had shaved the King of Oolb and the officers of his Court, and the viziers and emirs, and grave magistrates and cadis and shahids, and lesser personages of the Court and City of Oolb. So he denied this, and I continued to accuse him, the poor wretch! And his journeys were traced by Arabs from the gates of Oolb, his case a clear case of barbercraft proved upon him; and I was extolled for my zeal, praised, and in favour again, as is said by the poet:

This is so, and he says: