Now Aly Et-Try is their manager;
  He runs about all day, with naught achieved. 
  The Christian kept them in a stable shut,
  And like a squad of soldiers took them out. 
  He herded them like oxen there, and naught
  Was lacking but the drover’s lusty cries.

  Consider now the plight of Ould Sayyd,
  The big-jawed one.  He gained ten thousand francs,
  And lost them all at gambling.  Naught remains
  Except the benches and some coffee-grounds.

  The leader of musicians, wholly daft,
  Whose beard is whiter than the whitest wool,
  Has gone to Paris gay to see the sights. 
  (I hope he’ll bring up in the fires of hell!)
  If he comes back deceived, at least he’ll say
  He’s been abroad, and dazzle all his friends.

  The oboe-player, Sydy Ali, was
  Barber and cafekeeper, eager for
  A change, and crazy to get gold.  “This trip,”
  He told his friends, “is but a pilgrimage.” 
  There’s nothing lacking but the telbyya.

  “I’ve taken trips before and with good luck. 
  I was the master, with my art acclaimed. 
  I was director of the Nouba, at
  The court, when Turkey held the reins of power. 
  I was a court buffoon and broke my heart. 
  O Lord, why send’st thou not thy servant death?

  “I left a workman in my shop so that
  I might not lose my trade.  I went to show
  My oboe, for someone might ask for it. 
  I used to travel with musicians once.”

God bless him!—­what a workman.  He conversed
With all the customers who passed that way. 
He took them in the shop and told his case—­
“I’m here for a short while.”  Then he began
To praise his patron, who, he said, would have
A gift for him.

                   And his lieutenant, named
  Oulyd-el-Hadj Oualy, is a fool
  Who thinks his word superior to all,
  And that there’s no one like him in this world. 
  When he has gone there and come back again,
  He will be perfect.  All he contradicts
  Who speak to him, and will not let them lift
  A finger.  Little love he hath for those
  Who speak with candor, but he’s very fond
  Of liars, and always bids them come to him.

  “My childhood was so pampered!” he remarks,
  And flies into a passion if one doubts. 
  He only lives on semolina coarse,
  And empty is his paunch, all slack and limp. 
  Yet every day he tells you how he’s dined.

  “I have discovered,” he is wont to say
  “A certain semolina lately brought
  By a Maltese, who lives some distance off. 
  You never saw the like.  I’m going to have
  Some fine cakes made of it, and some meqrout.”

  And El-Hadj Mostefa was dragged along
  By all these lies and by the love of gain. 
  If God had not abandoned him, he’d be
  Still making lasts.  But ’twas the crowd that led
  Him on, and that is how it came to pass.