Sir, before I commence the recital of the story you have allowed me to tell, I beg leave to acquaint you, that I have not the honour to be born in a place that pertains to your majesty’s empire.  I am a stranger, born at Cairo in Egypt, one of the Coptic nations, and a professor of the Christian religion:  my father was a broker, and got a good estate, which he left me at his death:  I followed his example, and took up the same employment.  One day at Cairo, as I was standing in the public resort for the corn-merchants, there came up to me a handsome young man, well clad, and mounted upon an ass.  He saluted me, and pulling out his handkerchief, where he had a sample of sesame and Turkey corn, asked me what a bushel of such sesame would fetch?  I examined the corn which the young man showed me, and told him it was worth a hundred drams of silver per bushel.  ’Pray, said he, look out for some merchant to take it at that price, and come to me at the Victory-gate, where you will see a hut at a distance from the houses.’  He then left me, and I showed the sample to several merchants, who told me they would take as much as I could spare at an hundred and ten drams per bushel; so that I made an account to get ten drams per bushel for my brokerage.  Full of the expectation of this profit, I went forthwith to the Victory-gate, where I found the young merchant waiting for me, and he carried me into his granary, which was full of sesame.  He had an hundred and fifty bushels of it, which I measured out, and, having carried them off upon asses, sold them for five thousand drams of silver.  Now, out of this sum, said the young man, five hundred drams fall to you, at the rate of ten drams per bushel.  I order you to take it, and apply it to your own use; and as for the rest, which is mine, do you take it out of the merchant’s hand, and keep it till I call for it, as I nave no occasion for it at present.  I made answer, that it should be ready for him whenever he pleased; and so took leave of him, with a grateful sense of his generosity.

In a month after, he came and asked for his four thousand five hundred drams of silver.  I told him they were ready, and should be told down to him in a minute:  he was mounted on his ass;, so I desired him to alight, and do me the honour to eat a mouthful with me before he received his money.  No, said he, I cannot alight at present; I have urgent business that obliges me to be at a place hard by here; but I will return this way, and take the money, which I desire you would have in readiness.  This said, he disappeared; and I still expected his return, but it was a full month before he came again.  I thought with myself, the young man reposes a great trust in me, leaving so great a sum in my hands without knowing me; another would have been afraid lest I should have run away with it.  To be short, he came again at the end of the third month, and was still mounted on his ass, but finer in his clothes than before.  As soon