the other stranger, and behold it was his Wazir.  When each saw other, the twain wept and embraced, and the sower wept for their weeping; but the king hid their affair and said to him, “This man is from my mother-land and he is as my brother.”  So they homed with the husbandman and helped him for a hire, wherewith they supported themselves a long spell.  Meanwhile, they sought news of their patrial stead and learned that which its people suffered of straitness and severity.  One day there came a ship and in it a merchant from their own country, who knew them and rejoiced in them with joy exceeding and clad them in goodly clothing.  He also acquainted them with the manner of the treachery that had been practised upon them, and counselled them to return to their own land, they and he with whom they had made friends,[FN#398] assuring them that Almighty Allah would restore them to their former rank.  So the king returned and the folk joined themselves to him and he fell upon his brother and his Wazir and took them and threw them into jail.  Then he sat down again upon the throne of his kingship, whilst the Minister stood between his hands and they returned to their former estate, but they had naught of worldly wealth.  Presently the king said to his Wazir, “How shall we continue tarrying in this city, and we thus poorly conditioned?” and he answered, “Be at thine ease and have no concern.”  Then he singled out one of the soldiers[FN#399] and said to him, “Send us thy service[FN#400] for the year.”  Now there were in the city fifty thousand subjects[FN#401] and in the hamlets and villages[FN#402] a like number; and the Minister sent to each of these, saying, “Let each and every of you get an egg and set it under a hen.”  They did this and it was neither burden nor grievance to them; and when twenty days had passed by, each egg was hatched, and the Wazir bade them pair the chickens, male with female, and rear them well.  They did accordingly and it was found a charge unto no one.  Then they waited for them awhile and after this the Minister asked of the chickens and was answered that they were become fowls.  Furthermore, they brought him all their eggs and he bade set them; and after twenty days there were hatched from each pair of them thirty or five-and-twenty or fifteen chickens at the least.  The Wazir bade note against each man the number of chickens which pertained to him, and after two months, he took the old partlets and the cockerels, and there came to him from each man some half a score, and he left the young partlets with them.  Even so he sent to the country folk and let the cocks remain with them.  Thus he got him whole broods of young poultry and appropriated to himself the sale of the fowls, and on this wise he gained for him, in the course of a year, that which the kingly estate required of the King, and his affairs were set right for him by the cunning contrivance of the Minister.  And he caused the country to thrive and dealt justly by