“Where be the man who gave you the writ?” Quoth the other, “O King of the Age, there were two men who came to use and said, ’Why go ye not to the King?  Belike he will gift you and largesse you.’  Our reply was, ‘We know him not and we fear lest his folk drive us away.’  So one of them said to us, ’I will write thee a note to his address for we know him of old, inasmuch as both of us learned to read in the same school.’  Accordingly he indited it and sealed it and gave it to us; and coming hither we found his words true and now we are between his hands.”  The Sultan enquired, “Was there any lack of civility to the strangers on your part?” and they replied, “None, save our questioning them and saying, ’Whence come ye?’ whereto they rejoined, ‘We be strangers.’  Beyond this there was nothing unpleasant; nothing at all.”  “Whither went they?” asked the King and the other answered, “I wot not.”  The Sultan continued, “Needs must thou bring them to me for ’tis long since I saw them;” and the other remarked, “O King of the Age, if again they come to our place we will seize them and carry them before thee even perforce, but in case they come not, we have no means to hand.”  Quoth the King, “An thou know them well, when thou catchest sight of them they cannot escape thee,” and quoth the other, “Yea, verily.”  Then the Sultan pursued, “What did ye with the twain who came before them and ye wanted to bepiss them?” Now when the Bhang-eater heard these words his colour paled and his case changed, his limbs trembled and he suspected that the person which he had insulted was the Sultan; whereupon the King turned towards him and seeing in him signs of discomfiture asked, “What is in thy mind, O Bhang-eater?  What hath befallen thee?” The other arose forthright and kissing ground cried, “Pardon, O King of the Age, before whom I have sinned.”  The Sovran asked, “How didst thou know this?” and he answered, “Because none other was with us and news of us goeth not out of doors; so needs must thou have been one of the twain and he who wrote the writ was thyself; for well we know that the kings read not in schools.  Thou and thy friend did come in disguise to make merry at our expense; therefore pardon us, O King of the Age, for mercy is a quality of the noble, and Almighty Allah said, ’Whoso pardoneth and benefitteth his reward is with Allah,’ and eke He said, ’And the stiflers of wrath and the pardoners of mankind and Allah loveth the doers of good’."[FN#238] Herewith the Sultan smiled and said, “No harm shall befal thee, O Bhang-eater!  Thine excuse is accepted and thy default pardoned, but, O thou clever fellow, hast thou no tale to tell us?” He replied, “O King of the Age, I have a story touching myself and my wife which, were it graven with needle-gravers upon the eye-corners were a warning to whoso would be warned.  But I strave against her on my own behalf, withal she overcame me and tyrannised over me by her contrivance.”  “What is it?” asked the King; so the man began to relate the