Then he took him again and showed him the city and the mosques and all the sights of the place; after which he carried him to a cook’s shop, where the morning-meal was set before them in silver platters.  So they ate and drank till they had enough and going forth, fared on, whilst the Maugrabin proceeded to show Alaeddin the pleasaunces and fine buildings, [FN#198] going in with him to the Sultan’s palace and showing him all the fair and fine quarters [FN#199] [of the city]; after which he carried him to the Khan of the stranger merchants, where he himself lodged. and invited certain of the merchants who were in the Khan.  Accordingly they came and sat down to supper, and he informed them that this was his brother’s son and that his name was Alaeddin.  Then, after they had eaten and drunken, the night being now come, the Maugrabin arose and taking Alaeddin, carried him back to his mother.

When she saw her son as he were one of the merchants, her wit fled [and she waxed] sorrowful for gladness and fell to extolling the Maugrabin’s bounty and saying to him, “O my brother-in-law, I might not suffice [to thy deserts,] though I thanked thee all my life long and praised thee for the good thou hast done with my son.”  “O wife of my brother,” answered he, “this is no manner of kindness in me, [FN#200] for that this is my son and it behoveth me stand in the stead of my brother his father; so be thou easy.”  Quoth she, “I pray God, by the glory of the ancients [FN#201] and the moderns, that He let thee [live] and continue thee, O my brother-in-law, and prolong me thy life, so thou mayst be [as] a wing [FN#202] to this orphan boy; and he shall still be under thine obedience and thy commandment and shall do nought but that which thou biddest him.”  “O wife of my brother,” rejoined the Maugrabin, “Alaeddin is a man of understanding and [the son of] decent folk, and my hope is in God that he will follow in his father’s footsteps and be the solace of shine eyes; [FN#203] but it irketh me that, to-morrow being Friday, I cannot open him a shop.  It being congregation day, all the merchants will go out after prayers to the gardens and pleasaunces; but, God willing, on Saturday, an it please the Creator, we will do our business.  Tomorrow I will come to you and take Alaeddin, that I may show him the gardens and pleasaunces without the city,—­it may be he hath not yet seen them,—­and he shall see the merchant-folk and the notables a-pleasuring there, so he may become acquainted with them and they with him.” [FN#204]

The [FN#205] Maugrabin lay the night in his lodging; and on the morrow he came to the tailor’s house and knocked at the door.  Alaeddin—­of the excess of his joy in the clothes he had donned and of the pleasures he had enjoyed on the past day, what with the bath and eating and drinking and viewing the folk and the thought that his uncle was coming in the morning to take him and show him the gardens—­slept not that night neither closed an eye and thought the