“The lady who bought my brother Saladin’s vase was the favourite of the Sultan, and all-powerful in the seraglio.  Her dislike to me, in consequence of my opposition to her wishes, was so violent, that she refused to return to my brother’s house while I remained there.  He was unwilling to part with me; but I could not bear to be the ruin of so good a brother.  Without telling him my design, I left his house careless of what should become of me.  Hunger, however, soon compelled me to think of some immediate mode of obtaining relief.  I sat down upon a stone, before the door of a baker’s shop:  the smell of hot bread tempted me in, and with a feeble voice I demanded charity.

“The master baker gave me as much bread as I could eat, upon condition that I should change dresses with him and carry the rolls for him through the city this day.  To this I readily consented; but I had soon reason to repent of my compliance.  Indeed, if my ill-luck had not, as usual, deprived me at this critical moment of memory and judgment, I should never have complied with the baker’s treacherous proposal.  For some time before, the people of Constantinople had been much dissatisfied with the weight and quality of the bread furnished by the bakers.  This species of discontent has often been the sure forerunner of an insurrection; and, in these disturbances, the master bakers frequently lose their lives.  All these circumstances I knew, but they did not occur to my memory when they might have been useful.

“I changed dresses with the baker; but scarcely had I proceeded through the adjoining streets with my rolls before the mob began to gather round me with reproaches and execrations.  The crowd pursued me even to the gates of the grand seignior’s palace, and the grand vizier, alarmed at their violence, sent out an order to have my head struck off; the usual remedy, in such cases, being to strike off the baker’s head.

“I now fell upon my knees, and protested I was not the baker for whom they took me; that I had no connection with him; and that I had never furnished the people of Constantinople with bread that was not weight.  I declared I had merely changed clothes with a master baker for this day, and that I should not have done so but for the evil destiny which governs all my actions.  Some of the mob exclaimed that I deserved to lose my head for my folly; but others took pity on me, and whilst the officer, who was sent to execute the vizier’s order, turned to speak to some of the noisy rioters, those who were touched by my misfortune opened a passage for me through the crowd, and thus favoured, I effected my escape.