is some time since I perceived the glade of your circumstances to have been destroyed by the burning coals of restlessness, and a sad change to have taken place in your health.  I do not know the reason, nor what thorn of misfortune has pierced the foot of your heart, nor what hardship has dawned from the east of your mind.”  Zayn el-Arab wept tears of sadness and said, “O thou standard coin from the mint of love! the treachery of misfortune has brought a strange accident upon me, and the bow of destiny has let fly an unpropitious arrow upon my feeble target.  I have a heavy heart and great sorrow, and were I to reveal it to you perhaps it would be of no use and would plunge you also into grief.”  The learned man said, “Since the hearts of intimate friends are like looking-glasses and are receiving the figures of mutual secrets, it is at all times necessary that they should communicate to each other any difficulties which they have fallen into, that they may remove them by taking in common those steps which prudence and foresight should recommend.”  Zayn el-Arab replied, “Dear friend, I had some gold, and fearing lest it should be stolen, I carried it to such and such a place and buried it under a tree, and when I again visited the place, I perceived the garment of my beloved Joseph to be sprinkled with the blood of the wolf of deception.”  The learned man said, “This is a grave accident, and it will be difficult to get on the track of your gold.  Perhaps some one saw you bury it:  he who has taken it will have to give an account of it in the next world, for God is omniscient.  Give me ten days’ delay, that I may study the book of expedients and stratagems, when mayhap somewhat will occur to me.”

That knowing man sat down for ten days in the school of meditation, and how much so ever he turned over the leaves of the volume of his mind from the preface to the epilogue, he could hit upon no plan.  On the tenth day they again met in the street, and he said to Zayn el-Arab, “Although the diver of my mind has plunged deeply and searched diligently in this deep sea, he has been unable to seize the precious pearl of a wise plan of operation:  may God recompense you from the stores of His hidden treasury!” They were conversing in this way when a lunatic met them and said, “Well, my boys, what secret- mongering have you got between you?” The learned man said to Zayn el-Arab, “Come, let us relate our case to this crazy fellow, to see the flower of the plant that may bloom from his mind.”  Zayn el-Arab replied, “Dear friend, you, with all your knowledge, cannot devise anything during ten days:  what information are we likely to gain from a poor lunatic who does not know whether it is now day or night?” The learned man said, “There is no telling what he may say to us.  But you know that the most foolish as well as the most wise have ideas, and a sentence uttered at random has sometimes furnished a clue by which the desired object may be attained.”