turbands; but such mishaps, wondrous and marvellous, may betide mankind especially the miserable of lot.”  Sa’d also espoused my cause and said, “O Sa’di, ofttimes have we seen and heard how kites carry off many things besides comestibles; and his tale may not be wholly contrary to reason.”  Then Sa’di pulled out from his pocket a purseful of gold pieces and counted out and gave me another two hundred, saying, “O Hasan, take these Ashrafis, but see that thou keep them with all heed and diligence and beware, and again I say beware, lest thou lose them like the others.  Expend them in such fashion that thou mayst reap full benefit therefrom and prosper even as thou seest thy neighbours prosper.”  I took the money from him and poured out thanks and blessings upon his head, and when they went their ways I returned to my rope-walk and thence in due time straight home.  My wife and children were abroad, so again I took ten gold coins of the two hundred and securely tied up the remainder in a piece of cloth then I looked around to find a spot wherein to hide my hoard so that my wife and youngsters might not come to know of it and lay hands thereon.  Presently, I espied a large earthen jar full of bran standing in a corner of the room, so herein I hid the rag with the gold coins and I misdeemed that it was safely concealed from wife and wees.—­And as the morn began to dawn Shahrazad held her peace till

        The end of the Six Hundred and Eighteenth Night.

Then said she:—­I have heard, O auspicious King, that Hasan al-Habbal thus continued his story:—­When I had put the Ashrafis a bottom the jar of bran, my wife came in and I said naught to her of the two friends or of aught had happened, but I set out for the Bazar to buy hemp.  Now as soon as I had left the house there came, by evil fate impelled, a man who sold Tafl, or fuller’s earth,[FN#275] wherewith the poorer sort of women are wont to wash their hair.  My wife would fain have bought some but not a single Kauri[FN#276] or almond had she.  Then she took thought and said to herself, “This jar of bran is here to no purpose, I will exchange it for the clay,” and he also, the Tafl seller, agreed to this proposal and went off taking the jar of bran as the price of the washing earth.  Anon I came back with a load of hemp upon my head and other five on the heads of as many porters who accompanied me; and I helped them off with their burthens and, after storing the stuff in a room, I paid and dismissed them.  Then I stretched me out upon the floor to take rest awhile and looking towards the corner where once stood the jar of bran I found it gone.  Words fail me, O Prince of True Believers, to describe the tumult of feelings which filled my heart at the sight.  I sprang up with all speed and calling to my wife enquired of her whither the jar had been carried; and she replied that she had exchanged its contents for a trifle of washing clay.  Then cried I aloud, “O wretched, O miserable, what hast thou done?