ss and I pitied you! We had no
hand in this wicked trick which her husband has played you." The
wretched Bacbouc answered not a word, he was so much fatigued
with work and blows; but crept home to his house, resolving never
to think more of the miller's wife.

The telling of this story, continued the barber, made the caliph
laugh. "Go home," said he to me, "I have ordered something to be
given you to make up for the loss of the good dinner you
expected." "Commander of the faithful," I replied, "I pray your
majesty to let me stay till I have told the story of my other
brothers." The caliph having signified by his silence that he was
willing to hear me, I went on thus.

The Story of the Barber's Second Brother.

My second brother, who was called Backbarah the Toothless, going
one day through the city, met in a distant street an old woman,
who came up to him, and said, "I want one word with you, pray
stop a moment." He did so, and asked what she would have. "If you
have time to come with me," said she, "I will bring you into a
stately palace, where you shall see a lady as fair as the day.
She will receive you with much pleasure, and treat you with
excellent wine. I need say no more." "But is what you say true?"
demanded my brother. "I am no lying hussy," replied the old
woman. "I say nothing to you but what is true. But hark, I have
something to ask of you. You must be prudent, say but little, and
be extremely polite." Backbarah agreed to all this. The old woman
went on, and he followed her. They came to the gate of a great
palace, where there was a number of officers and domestics. Some
of them would have stopped my brother, but no sooner did the old
woman speak to them than they let him pass. Then turning to my
brother, she said to him, "You must remember that the young lady
I bring you to loves good-nature and modesty, and cannot endure
to be contradicted; if you please her in these respects, you may
be sure to obtain of her what you please." Backbarah thanked her
for this advice, and promised to follow it.

She brought him into a superb court, answerable to the
magnificence of the palace. There was a gallery round it, and a
garden in the middle. The old woman made him sit down on a
handsome sofa, and bade him stay a moment, till she went to
acquaint the young lady with his arrival.

My brother, who had never been in such a stately palace before,
gazed on the fine things that he saw; and j