and stinted not to serve him for a long time, saying in himself the while, “This for that is tit for tat! and after the Caliphate and commandment and happiness and honour, this day art thou left to lick the platters.  What had I to do with such diversion as this?  Withal ’tis fairer than the spectacle that anyone even my Wazir ever saw and the more excellent, for that I after being the Caliph of the Age, and the choice gift of the Time and Tide have now become the hireling of a cook.  Would to Heaven I wot the sin which brought me hereto?"[FN#271] Now as he abode with the cook it befel him that one day he threaded the Jewellers’ Bazar; for about that city was a sea-site whereinto the duckers and divers went down and whence they brought up pearls and corals and precious stones; and as he stood in the market-place, quoth he to himself, “Let me here become a broker in this market street and find rest from my groaning in labour and my licking of platters.”  As soon as morning morrowed he did on such wise, when suddenly a merchant approached him, hending in hand a costly gem whose light burned like a lamp or rather like a ray of sunshine, and ’twas worth the tribute of Egypt and Syria.  Hereat the Caliph marvelled with exceeding marvel, and quoth he to the trader, “Say me, wilt thou sell this jewel?” and quoth the other, “Yes.”  So the Sultan taking it from him went about with it amongst the merchants, who seeing and considering it, wondered greatly at its beauty.  Accordingly they bid for it fifty thousand diners, but the royal broker ceased not to bear it about and the buyers to increase their biddings till they offered an hundred thousand gold pieces.  Thereupon the Caliph returned with it to the owner and accosted him saying, “Wilt thou sell it for the sum named?” and when the merchant consented, he continued, “I now go to receive its price, wherewith I will come back to thee.”  Then the broker went up to the buyer and said, “Bring hither its value and set it in my hand;” but the man asked him, “Where be its owner?” and the Caliph answered, “Its owner hath commissioned me to receive its price, after which he will come and recover the same from me.”  However the bidder retorted, “This be not fitting nor is it according to Holy Law:  do thou bring me its owner; then come and let him pouch the price, for ’tis he hath sold it to me and thou art only our agent.”  Hereupon the Caliph went forth to seek the proprietor and wandered about a long while without finding him; after which he again accosted the purchaser, and said to him, “I am the rightful proprietor:  place the price in my hand.”  The buyer arose to pay his debt, but before so doing he considered the jewel and saw that it was a bit of dark Sandarach;[FN#272] whereat he was sore perplex” and cried out to the Caliph, “O Satan, cost thou palm off false wares, the market-place of the merchants being under the orders of the Sultan?” But when the traders heard these words, they flocked around the pretended broker and