but here is the key, go down to the store-house and take all that is thine own.”  So Ali Khwajah did as he was bidden and carrying the jar from the magazine took his leave and hastened home; but, when he opened the vessel and found not the gold coins, he was distracted and overwhelmed with grief and made bitter lamentation.  Then he returned to the merchant and said, “O my friend, Allah, the All-present and the All-seeing, be my witness that, when I went on my pilgrimage to Meccah the Magnified, I left a thousand Ashrafis in that jar, and now I find them not.  Canst thou tell me aught concerning them?  An thou in thy sore need have made use of them, it mattereth not so thou wilt give them back as soon as thou art able.”  The merchant, apparently pitying him, said, “O good friend, thou didst thyself with thine hand set the jar inside the store-room.  I wist not that thou hadst aught in it save olives; yet as thou didst leave it, so in like manner didst thou find it and carry it away; and now thou chargest me with theft of Ashrafis.  It seemeth strange and passing strange that thou shouldst make such accusation.  When thou wentest thou madest no mention of any money in the jar, but saidst that it was full of olives, even as thou hast found it.  Hadst thou left gold coins therein, then surely thou wouldst have recovered them.”  Hereupon Ali Khwajah begged hard with much entreaty, saying, “Those thousand Ashrafis were all I owned, the money earned by years of toil:  I do beseech thee have pity on my case and give them back to me.”  Replied the merchant, waxing wroth with great wrath, “O my friend, a fine fellow thou art to talk of honesty and withal make such false and lying charge.  Begone:  hie thee hence and come not to my house again; for now I know thee as thou art, a swindler and imposter.”  Hearing this dispute between Ali Khwajah and the merchant all the people of the quarter came crowding to the shop.—­And as the morn began to dawn Shahrazad held her peace till

       The end of the Six Hundred and Forty-first Night.

Then said she:—­I have heard, O auspicious King, that the multitude which thronged about the merchant’s shop warmly took up the matter; and thus it became well known to all, rich and poor, within the city of Baghdad how that one Ali Khwajah had hidden a thousand Ashrafis within a jar of olives and had placed it on trust with a certain merchant; moreover how, after pilgrimaging to Meccah and seven years of travel the poor man had returned, and that the rich man had gainsaid his words anent the gold and was ready to make oath that he had not received any trust of the kind.  At length, when naught else availed, Ali Khwajah was constrained to bring the matter before the Kazi, and to claim one thousand Ashrafis of his false friend.  The Judge asked, “What witnesses hast thou who may speak for thee?” and the plantiff answered, “O my lord the Kazi, I feared to tell the matter to any man lest all come to know of my secret.  Allah