“Nay, come along! come along! my worthy neighbour, don’t stand on any ceremony with us, you can see for yourself how merry we are!”

The worthy neighbour thereupon gingerly entered, on the tips of his toes, with his hands fumbling nervously about in the breast of his kaftan; for the poor fellow’s hands were resinous to a degree.  Wash and scrub them as he might, the resin would persist in cleaving to them.  His awl, too, was still sticking in the folds of his turban—­sticking forth aloft right gallantly like some heron’s plume.  Naturally he whose business it was to mend other men’s shoes went about in slippers that were mere bundles of rags—­that is always the way with cobblers!

When he saw Guel-Bejaze on Halil’s lap, and Halil’s face beaming all over with joy, he smote his hands together and fell a-wondering.

“There must be some great changes going on here!” thought he.

But Halil compelled him to sit down beside them, and after kissing Guel-Bejaze again—­apparently he could not kiss the girl enough—­he cried: 

“Look! my dear neighbour! she is now my wife, and henceforth she will love me as her husband, and I shall no longer be the slave of my slave.  And this worthy man here is my wife’s father.  Greet them, therefore, and then be content to eat and drink with us!”

Then Musli approached Janaki and saluted him on the shoulder, then, turning towards Guel-Bejaze, he touched with his hand first the earth and next his forehead, sat down beside Janaki on the cushions that had been drawn into the middle of the room, and made merry with them.

And now Janaki sent the slave he had brought with him to the pastry-cook’s while Musli skipped homewards and brought with him a tambourine of chased silver, which he could beat right cunningly and also accompany it with a voice not without feeling; and thus Halil’s bridal evening flowed pleasantly away with an accompaniment of wine and music and kisses.

And all this time the worthy Berber-Bashi was looking on at this junketing through the trellised window, and could scarce restrain himself from giving expression to his astonishment when he perceived that Guel-Bejaze no longer collapsed like a dead thing at the contact of a kiss, or even at the pressure of an embrace, as she was wont to do in the harem, indeed her face had now grown rosier than the dawn.

At last his curiosity completely overcame him, and turning the handle of the door he appeared in the midst of the revellers.

He wore the garb of a common woodcutter, and his simple, foolish face corresponded excellently to the disguise.  Nobody in the world could have taken him for anything but what he now professed to be, and it was with a very humble obeisance that he introduced himself.

“Allah Kerim!  Salaam aleikum!  God’s blessing go with your mirth.  Why, you were so merry that I heard you at the cemetery yonder as I was passing.  If it will not put you out I should be delighted to remain here, as long as you will let me, that I may listen to the music this worthy Mussulman here understands so well, and to the pretty stories which flow from the harmonious lips of this houri who has, I am persuaded, come down from Paradise for the delight of men.”