So saying, he left him and went away, whereupon up came the three other sharpers, the comrades of him of the ass, and said to the money-changer, ’God requite thee for us with good, for that thou hast bought him!  How can we requite thee!’ Quoth he, ’I will not sell him but for ten thousand dirhems.’  When they heard this, they returned to the ass and fell again to examining him and handling him.  Then said they to the money-changer, ’We were mistaken in him.  This is not the ass we sought and he is not worth more than half a score paras to us.’  Then they left him and offered to go away, whereat the money-changer was sore chagrined and cried out at their speech, saying, ’O folk, ye besought me to buy him for you and now I have bought him, ye say, “We were deceived [in him], and he is not worth more than ten paras to us."’ Quoth they, ’We supposed that in him was that which we desired; but, behold, in him is the contrary of that which we want; and indeed he hath a default, for that he is short of back.’  And they scoffed at him and went away from him and dispersed.

The money-changer thought they did but finesse with him, that they might get the ass at their own price; but, when they went away from him and he had long in vain awaited their return, he cried out, saying, ‘Woe!’ and ‘Ruin!’ and ’Alack, my sorry chance!’ and shrieked aloud and tore his clothes.  So the people of the market assembled to him and questioned him of his case; whereupon he acquainted them with his plight and told them what the sharpers had said and how they had beguiled him and how it was they who had cajoled him into buying an ass worth half a hundred dirhems[FN#47] for five thousand and five hundred.[FN#48] His friends blamed him and a company of the folk laughed at him and marvelled at his folly and his credulity in accepting the sharpers’ talk, without suspicion, and meddling with that which he understood not and thrusting himself into that whereof he was not assured.

On this wise, O King Shah Bekht,” continued the vizier, “is the issue of eagerness for [the goods of] the world and covetise of that which our knowledge embraceth not; indeed, [whoso doth thus] shall perish and repent Nor, O king of the age, (added he) is this story more extraordinary than that of the sharper and the merchants.”

When the king heard this story, he said in himself, “Verily, had I given ear to the sayings of my courtiers and inclined to the idle prate [of those who counselled me] in the matter of [the slaying of] my vizier, I had repented to the utterest of repentance, but praised be God, who hath disposed me to mansuetude and long-suffering and hath endowed me with patience!” Then he turned to the vizier and bade him return to his dwelling and [dismissed] those who were present, as of wont.

The Twenty-Third Night of the Month.

When the evening evened, the king sent after the vizier and when he presented himself before him, he required of him the hearing of the [promised] story.  So he said, “Hearkening and obedience.  Know, O illustrious lord, that