said, “O my son, go back and bring me my shoes.”  The women still looking, and the youth returned in mighty haste and hurry till he stood under the terrace, when he looked up and said, “My father hath just now charged me with a charge saying, ’Do thou go sleep with my wives, the twain of them, and have each one of them once.’  They replied, “What, O dog, O accursed, thy father bespake thee on this wise?  By Allah, indeed thou liest, O hog, O ill-omened wight.”  “Wallahi,” he rejoined, “I lie not!” So he walked back till he was near his father when he shouted his loudest so as to be heard by both parties, “O my papa, O my papa, one of them or the two of them?  One of them or the two of them?” The father shouted in reply, “The two, the two!  Allah disappoint thee:  did I say one of them or the two of them?” So the youth returned to his father’s wives and cried, “Ye have heard what my papa said.  I asked him within your hearing, ’One of them or the two of them?’ and ye heard him say, ‘Both, both.’” Now the man was speaking of his slippers, to wit, the pair; but the women understood that his saying, “the two of them” referred to his wives.  So one turned to her sister spouse and said, “So it is,[FN#591] our ears heard it and the youth hath in no wise lied:  let him lie with me once and once with thee even as his father bade him.”  Both were satisfied herewith; but meanwhile the son stole quietly into the house and found his father’s papooshes:  then he caught him up on the road and gave them to him and the man went his ways.  Presently the youth returned to the house and taking one of his father’s wives lay with her and enjoyed her and she also had her joy of him; and when he had done all he wanted with her he fared forth from her to the second wife in her chamber and stretched himself beside her and toyed with her and futtered her.  She saw in the son a something she had not seen in the sire, so she joyed in him and he joyed in her.  Now when he had won his will of the twain and had left the house the women foregathered and began talking and saying, “By Allah, this youth hath given us both much amorous pleasure, far more than his father ever did; but when our husband shall return let us keep our secret even though he spake the words we heard:  haply he may not brook too much of this thing.”  So as soon as the man came back with the wheat he asked the women saying, “What befel you?” and they answered, “O Man, art thou not ashamed to say to thy son, ‘Go sleep with both thy father’s wives?’ ’Tis lucky that thou hast escaped.”  Quoth he, “Never said I aught of this”; and quoth they, “But we heard thee cry, ‘The two of them.’” He rejoined, “Allah disappoint you:  I forgot my papooshes and said to him, ‘Go fetch them.’  He cried out ’One of them or the two of them?’ and I replied, ‘The two of them,’ meaning my shoes, not you.”  “And we,” said they, “when he spake to us such words slippered him and turned him out and now he never cometh near us.”  “Right well have ye done,” he rejoined, “’tis