So he repaired to the scribe, who wrote him the scroll, and he brought it to his master, who set it on the door and said to the damsel, “Art thou satisfied?” “Yes,” answered she.  “Arise forthright and get thee to the place before the citadel, where do thou foregather with all the mountebanks and ape-dancers and bear-leaders and drummers and pipers and bid them come to thee to-morrow early, with their drums and pipes, what time thou drinkest coffee with thy father-in-law the Cadi, and congratulate thee and wish thee joy, saying, ’A blessed day, O son of our uncle!  Indeed, thou art the vein[FN#266] of our eye!  We rejoice for thee, and if thou be ashamed of us, verily, we pride ourselves upon thee; so, though thou banish us from thee, know that we will not forsake thee, albeit thou forsakest us.’  And do thou fall to strewing dinars and dirhems amongst them; whereupon the Cadi will question thee, and do thou answer him, saying, ’My father was an ape-dancer and this is our original condition; but out Lord opened on us [the gate of fortune] and we have gotten us a name among the merchants and with their provost.’

Then will he say to thee, ’Then thou art an ape-leader of the tribe of the mountebanks?’ And do thou reply, ’I may in nowise deny my origin, for the sake of thy daughter and in her honour.’  The Cadi will say, ’It may not be that thou shalt be given the daughter of a sheikh who sitteth upon the carpet of the Law and whose descent is traceable by genealogy to the loins of the Apostle of God,[FN#267] nor is it seemly that his daughter be in the power of a man who is an ape-dancer, a minstrel.’  And do thou rejoin, ’Nay, O Effendi, she is my lawful wife and every hair of her is worth a thousand lives, and I will not let her go, though I be given the kingship of the world.’  Then be thou persuaded to speak the word of divorce and so shall the marriage be dissolved and ye be delivered from each other.”

Quoth Alaeddin, “Thou counsellest well,” and locking up his shop, betook himself to the place before the citadel, where he foregathered with the drummers and pipers and instructed them how they should do, [even as his mistress had counselled him,] promising them a handsome reward.  So they answered him with “Hearkening and obedience” and on the morrow, after the morning-prayer, he betook himself to the presence of the Cadi, who received him with obsequious courtesy and seated him beside himself.  Then he turned to him and fell to conversing with him and questioning him of matters of selling and buying and of the price current of the various commodities that were exported to Baghdad from all parts, whilst Alaeddin replied to him of all whereof he asked him.