Page:The jade story book; stories from the Orient (IA jadestorybooksto00cous).pdf/161

Rh was dazzled by the lustre of the pearls, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other precious stones exposed for sale.

After Prince Houssain had passed through that quarter, street by street, a merchant, perceiving him go by much fatigued, invited him to sit down in front of his shop. He had not been seated long before a crier appeared, with a piece of carpet on his arm, about six feet square, and offered it at forty purses. The prince called to the crier, and when he had examined the carpet, told him that he could not comprehend how so small a piece of carpet, and of so indifferent an appearance, could be held at so high a price unless it had something very extraordinary in it which he knew nothing of.

"You have guessed right, sir," replied the crier; "whoever sits on this piece of carpet may be transported in an instant wherever he desires to be."

"If the carpet," said he to the crier, "has the virtue you attribute to it, I shall not think forty purses too much."

"Sir," replied the crier, "I have told you the truth, and with the leave of the master