, taught me his trade, and left me all he had when he
died; that after his death I kept a shop. In fine, I had an
infinity of other adventures, too tedious to recount: and all I
can say is, that it was well that I awoke, for they were going to
impale me!" "And for what," cried the lady, feigning
astonishment, "would they have used you so cruelly? Surely you
must have committed some enormous crime." "Not the least,"
replied Buddir ad Deen; "it was for nothing but a mere trifle,
the most ridiculous thing you can imagine. All the crime I was
charged with, was selling a cream-tart that had no pepper in it."
"As for that matter," said the beautiful lady laughing heartily,
"I must say they did you great injustice." "Ah!" replied he,
"that was not all. For this cursed cream-tart was every thing in
my shop broken to pieces, myself bound and fettered, and flung
into a chest, where I lay so close, that methinks I am there
still, but thanks be to God all was a dream."

Buddir ad Deen was not easy all night. He awoke from time to time, and
put the question to himself, whether he dreamed or was awake. He
distrusted his felicity; and, to be sure whether it was true or not,
looked round the room. "I am not mistaken," said he; "this is the same
chamber where I entered instead of the hunch-backed groom of the
stables; and I am now in bed with the fair lady designed for him."
Day-light, which then appeared, had not yet dispelled his uneasiness,
when the vizier Shumse ad Deen, his uncle, knocked at the door, and at
the same time went in to bid him good morrow.

Buddir ad Deen was extremely surprised to see a man he knew so
well, and who now appeared with a different air from that with
which he pronounced the terrible sentence of death against him.
"Ah!" cried Buddir ad Deen, "it was you who condemned me so
unjustly to a kind of death, the thoughts of which make me
shudder, and all for a cream-tart without pepper." The vizier
fell a laughing, and to put him out of suspense, told him how, by
the ministry of a genie (for hunch-back's relation made him
suspect the adventure), he had been at his palace, and had
married his daughter instead of the sultan's groom of the
stables; then he acquainted him that he had discovered him to be
his nephew by the memorandum of his father, and pursuant to that
discovery had gone from Cairo to Bussorah in quest of him. "My
dear nephew," added he, embracing him with every expression of
tenderness, "I ask y