Dunyazad said to her, “Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!” She replied, “With love and good will!” It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting and deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the Sultan marvelled at the action of this Bassorite and his saying, “Give me my ‘Anaught!’” Presently the tidings of that cause reached me, O King; so I went to the Divan which was thronged with folk and all present kept saying, “How would it be if this ‘Anaught’ were a fraud or a resiliation of the contract?” Thereupon the Sultan exclaimed, “Whoso shall settle this case, to him verily will I be bountiful.”  So I came forward, O King of the Age, thinking of a conceit and kissed ground and said to him, “I will conclude this cause,” and he rejoined, “An thou determine it and dispose of it I will give thee largesse; but if not, I will strike off thy head.”  I rejoined, “To hear is to obey.”  Then I bade them bring a large basin which could hold a skinful of water and ordered them fill it; after which I called out to the Bassorite, “Draw near,” and he drew near.  Then I cried to the claimant, “Close thy fist!” and he did accordingly, and again I commanded him to close it and to keep it tight closed.  He obeyed my bidding and I continued “Dip thy neave into the basin,” and he dipped it.  Presently I asked, “Is thy hand in the water and thy fist closed?” and he replied, “It is.”  Then said I, “Withdraw it,” and he withdrew it, and I cried, “Open thy neave,” and he opened it.  Then I asked, “What thing hast thou found therein?” and he answered, “Anaught;” whereupon I cried to him, “Take thine ‘Anaught’ and wend thy ways.”  Hereupon the Sultan said to the Bassorite, “Hast thou taken thine ‘Anaught,’ O man?” and said he “Yes.”  Accordingly the King bade him gang his gait.  Then the Sultan gifted me with costly gifts and named me Kazi; and hence, O King of the Age, is the cause of the title in the case of one who erst was Abu Kasim the Drummer.  Hereat quoth the Sultan, “Relate to us what rare accident befel thee in thy proper person.”  So the judge began to recount

The Story of the Kazi and his Slipper.

Once upon a time, O King of the Age, I had a slipper which hardly belonged to its kind nor ever was there seen a bigger.  Now one day of the days I waxed aweary of it and sware to myself that I would never wear it any more; so in mine anger I flung it away and it fortuned to fall upon the flat roof of a Khwajah’s house where the stucco was weakest.  Thence it dropped through, striking a shelf that held a number of phials full of the purest rose-water and the boarding yielded breaking all the bottles and spilling their contents.  The house-folk heard the breakage ringing and rattling; so they crowded one after other to discover what had done the damage and at last they found my