His wife fell ill, and had a longing for apples, so that he made the journey to Bussorah, and bought three apples from the caliph’s gardener.  But his wife would not eat them.  One day, as he sat in his shop, passed a slave, bearing one of the apples.  The husband asked how he came by it, whereat replied the slave that his mistress gave it him, saying that her wittol of a husband had journeyed to Bussorah for it.  Then in rage the young man returned and slew his wife.  Presently his little son came home, saying that he was afraid of his mother; and when the father questioned him, replied the child that he had taken one of his mother’s three apples to play with, and that a slave had stolen it.  Then did the husband know his wife to be innocent, and he told her father all, and they both mourned for her, and both offered themselves to the executioner—­the one that he was guilty, the other to save his son-in-law whose guilt was innocence.

From this story followed that of Noureddin and his son Bedreddin Hassan, whose marriage to the Lady of Beauty was brought about by a genie, in spite of great difficulties.  And it was after hearing this tale that Haroun al-Raschid declared to his vizir:  “It behoves that these stories be written in letters of liquid gold.”

III.—­Hassan, the Rope-Maker

Two men, so it chanced, disputing whether wealth could give happiness, came before the shop of a poor rope-maker.  Said one of the men:  “I will give this fellow two hundred pieces of gold, and see what he does with it.”  Hassan, amazed by this gift, put the gold in his turban, except ten pieces, and went forth to buy hemp for his trade and meat for his children.

As he journeyed, a famished vulture made a pounce at the meat, and Hassan’s turban fell off, with which the vulture, balked of the meat, flew away, far out of sight.

When the two men returned they found Hassan very unhappy, and the same who had given before gave him another two hundred pieces, which Hassan hid carefully, all but ten pieces, in a pot of bran.  While he was out buying hemp, his wife exchanged the pot of bran for some scouring sand with a sandman in the street.  Hassan was maddened when he came home, and beat his wife, and tore her hair, and howled like an evil spirit.  When his friends returned they were amazed by his tale, but the one who had as yet given nothing now gave Hassan a lump of lead picked up in the street, saying:  “Good luck shall come of homely lead, where gold profits nothing.”

Hassan thought but little of the lead, and when a fisherman sent among his neighbours that night for a piece of lead wherewith to mend his nets, very willingly did Hassan part with this gift, the fisherman promising him the first fish he should catch.

When Hassan’s wife cut open this fish to cook it, she found within it a large piece of glass, crystal clear, which she threw to the children for a plaything.  A Jewess who entered the shop saw this piece of glass, picked it up, and offered a few pieces of money for it.  Hassan’s wife dared not do anything now without her husband’s leave, and Hassan, being summoned, refused all the offers of the Jewess, perceiving that the piece of glass was surely a precious diamond.  At last the Jewess offered a hundred thousand pieces of gold, and, as this was wealth beyond wealth, Hassan very willingly agreed to the barter.