I love you.  I conjured her, by all the powers of love, to drop such a fatal resolution; but all my remonstrances were ineffectual:  she was so afflicted to see me have but one hand, that she sickened and died, after five or six weeks’ illness.  After mourning for her death as long as was decent, I took possession of her estate, a particular account of which she gave me before she died; and the corn you sold for me was part of it.

What I have now told you will induce you to excuse me for eating with my left hand.  I am greatly obliged to you for the trouble you have given yourself on my account.  I can never make sufficient acknowledgment of your fidelity.  Since God has still given me a competent estate, notwithstanding I have spent a great deal, I beg you to accept of the sum now in your hand as a present from me.  Over and above this, I have a proposal to make to you, which is this:  for as much as, by reason of this fatal accident, I am obliged to depart from Cairo, I am resolved never to see it more.  So, if you please to accompany me, we shall trade together as equal partners, and divide the profits.

I thanked the young man, said, the Christian merchant, for the present he made me; and as to the proposal of travelling with him, I willingly embraced it, assuring him that his interest should always be as dear to me as my own.  We accordingly get a day for our departure, and set out upon our travels.  We passed through Syria and Mesopotamia, travelled all over Persia, and, after stopping at several cities, came at last, sir, to your metropolis.  Some time after our arrival in this place, the young man having formed a design of returning to Persia, and settling there, we settled our accounts, and parted very good friends; so he went from hence, and I continue here at your majesty’s service.  This, sir, is the story I had to tell you:  does not your majesty find it yet more surprising than that of the crooked buffoon?

The sultan of Casgar fell into a passion against the Christian merchant:  you are very bold, said he, to tell me a story so little worth my hearing, and then to compare it with that of my jester.  Can you flatter yourself so far as to believe that the trifling adventures of a young rake can make such an impression upon me as those of my jester?  Well, I am resolved to hang you all four to revenge his death.

This said, the purveyor fell down at the sultan’s feet.  Sir, said he, I humbly beseech your majesty to suspend your just wrath, and hear my story; and if my story appears to your majesty to be prettier than that of your jester, to pardon us all four.  The sultan having granted his request, the purveyor began his story.

The story told by the sultan of Casgar’s
purveyor.