e
necessary instruction." Mazin, overjoyed, immediately shut up his
shop, and with his adopted father repaired to his own house,
where he seated him in his best apartment. He then went to his
mother, desiring that she would go and spend the night at a
neighbour's, shewing her the gold which his broken copper had
procured, as a proof of the sincerity of his new friend. The old
lady no longer doubted upon such evidence, and cheerfully took
leave and departed to a friend's house.

Mazin next went to a cook's shop, from which he returned laden
with every sort of refreshment, nor was wine forgotten, though
forbidden to the faithful. The adopted father and son ate
heartily, at the same time pushing about the spirit-stirring
liquor, till at last Mazin, who had not been used to drink wine,
became intoxicated. The wily magician, for such in fact was his
pretended friend, watching his opportunity, infused into the
goblet of his unsuspecting host a certain potent drug, which
Mazin had scarcely drunk oft, when he fell back upon his cushion
totally insensible, the treacherous wizard tumbled him into a
large chest, and shutting the lid, locked it. He then ransacked
the apartments of the house of every thing portable worth having,
which, with the gold, he put into another chest, then fetching in
porters, he made them take up the chests and follow him to the
seaside, where a vessel waited his orders to sail, and embarked
with the unfortunate Mazin and his plunder. The anchor was
weighed, and the wind being fair, the ship was soon out of sight
of the land.

Mazin's mother early in the morning returning to her house found the
door open, her son missing, and the rooms ransacked of all her
valuables. She gave a loud shriek, tore her hair, beat her bosom, and
threw herself on the ground, crying out for her son, who she thought
must have been murdered by the treacherous magician, against whose
professions she had warned him to be cautious, till the sight of the
transmuted gold had deceived her, as well as the unfortunate victim of
his accursed arts. Some neighbours hearing her lamentations rushed in,
lifted her from the ground, and inquired the cause of her distress;
which, when informed of, they endeavoured to alleviate by every
consolation in their power, but in vain: the afflicted old lady was
not to be comforted. She commanded a tombstone to be raised in the
court-yard, over which she sat night and day bewailing her son, taking
scar