“Take this piece of money, worthy Chorbadshi,” said he, “and if you will permit me to remain beneath your roof this day also, prepare therewith a mid-day meal for us both.”

Halil hastened with the money to the piazza, bargained and chaffered for all sorts of eatables, and made it a matter of conscience to keep only a single copper asper of the money entrusted to him.  Then he prepared for his guest pilaf, the celebrated Turkish dish consisting of rice cooked with sheep’s flesh, and brought him from the booths of the master-cooks and master-sugar-bakers, honey-cakes, dulchas, pistachios, sweet pepper-cakes filled with nuts and stewed in honey, and all manner of other delicacies, at the sight and smell of which Janaki began to shout that Sultan Achmed could not be better off.  Halil, however, requested him not to mention the name of the Sultan quite so frequently and not to bellow so loudly.

That night, also, he made his guest mount to the top of the roof, and having noticed during the preceding night that the Greek had been perpetually shifting his position, and consequently suspecting that he was little used to so hard a couch, Halil took the precaution of stripping off his own kaftan beforehand and placing it beneath the carpet he had already surrendered to his guest.

Early next morning Janaki gave another golden denarius to Halil.

“Fetch me writing materials!” said he, “for I want to write a letter to someone, and then with God’s help I will quit your house and pursue my way further.”

Halil departed, went a-bargaining in the bazaar, and returned with what he had been sent for.  He calculated his outlay to a penny in the presence of his guest.  The kalem (pen) was so much, so much again the muerekob (ink), and the muehuer (seal) came to this and that.  The balance he returned to Janaki.

As for Janaki he went up on to the roof again, there wrote and sealed his letter, and thrust it beneath the carpet, and then laying hold of his stick again, entreated Halil, with many thanks for his hospitality, to direct him to the Pera road whence, he said, he could find his way along by himself.

Halil willingly complied with the petition of his guest, and accompanied him all the way to the nearest thoroughfare.  When now Janaki beheld the Bosphorus, and perceived that the road from this point was familiar to him, so that he needed no further assistance, he suddenly exclaimed: 

“Look now, my friend! an idea has occurred to me.  The letter I have just written on your roof has escaped my memory entirely.  I placed it beneath the carpet, and beside it lies a purse of money which I meant to have sent along with the letter.  Now, however, I cannot turn back for it.  I pray you, therefore, go back to your house, take this letter together with the purse, and hand them both over to the person to whom they are addressed—­and God bless you for it!”