Page:Three crump twin brothers of Damascus (3).pdf/17

 propoſed to me.-But ſtay, ſtay, I think I drank two glaſſes of brandy upon further conſideration. Drink ſix, if you will, anſwered the Caliph, ſo you do but make an end of your ſtory. Hold there, ſir, cried the porter, one cannot ſwallow down brandy at that rate neither; 'twill fly into the head: I am half drunk with thoſe two only, and you would have me here, after all that wine, pope down a bottle of brandy to boot: no, no, ſir, I will do no ſuch thing, though the ſovereign commander of the faithful himſelf ſhould beg me upon his knees to do it. But let us return to our ſheep. So then it was that the cutler woman, ſeeing me grow a little merry, as one may ſay, gave me to underſtand that a little crooked man, who came to her houſe to buy ſome cutlers ware, had died ſuddenly in her shop, and that fearing ſhe ſhould be accuſed of having killed him, ſhe, if I would throw him into the Tygris, promiſed, me four ſequins for my trouble, to which I agreed. I had not drunk ſo much neither, but that I was reſolved to make ſure of my caſh. I demanded two of the ſequins in earneſt, ſhe gave them me: I puts little crump into my ſack, does as I was bid, and comes back to take the reſt of my money, when ſhe ſhows me again the very ſame man. I leave you to imagine ſir, how much I was ſurpriſed. I put him once more into my ſack, carries him again to the bridge, and, chooſing the moſt rapid part of the ſtream, toſſed him in; and as I was returning to the cutler's, when I again met the crooked road, with a lanthorn in his hard, and making as if he was drunk. I grew weary of ſo much jeſting, took hold of him roughly, and pulling him into my ſack in ſpite of his teeth tied up the mouth of it, and flung him a third time into the Tygris with my ſack and all, imagining that