will carry the two for sixteen ounces."

"Allah will make it up to you," said the old man. "If you will deign to
accompany me to the bazaar, I will pay you immediately."

They went to the arcades about the square and entered the shop of
Hassan, the money-changer.

The old man pulled at his girdle and produced, after many contortions,
a purse of gazelle skin.

"Friend Hassan," he said, "I wish to pay to this, my son, sixteen
ounces. Kindly weigh them for me."

Hassan produced his scales. They consisted of two metal disks,
suspended by silk threads from the ends of a fern stem. He balanced
this stem upon the edge of a knife, fixed above his table. In one of
the pans he placed a weight, stamped with Arabic characters. The pan
fell to the table. Hassan produced a horn spoon, which he blew upon and
then carefully wiped with the hem of his burnoose. He handed the spoon
to the old man, who felt of the bowl.

"It is dry," he said; "nothing will stick to it."

Hassan plunged the spoon into the bag and brought it out, filled with
gold-dust, which he poured into the empty pan. The scales rose, fell,
trembled, and then settled even.

"I nearly always can judge an ounce," said Hassan; "a grain is another
matter."

He weighed out sixteen ounces. The last ounce he left in the pan. Then
he turned and, with a sweep of his arm, caught a fly from off the wall.
He handled it with the greatest care until he held it in the tips of
his fingers; then he put it into his mouth and closed his lips. In a
moment he took it out. The fly was moist and dejected. He placed it
upon the gold-dust in the pan. The fly began to beat its wings and work
its legs. In a moment its color changed from blue-black to yellow. It
was coated with gold-dust. Hassan lifted it with a pair of tweezers,
and popped it into an inlaid box.

"My commission," he said. "Good-by. Allah be with you."

The old man tied up his bag, which seemed to be as heavy as ever.

"I thought," said Abdullah, glancing at the purse, "that seventeen
ounces was all you had."

"What remains," said the old man, and there was a twinkle in his eye,
"belongs to Allah's poor, of whom I am one."

"I regret," said Abdullah, with some heat, "that I did not treble my
usual price. I merely doubled it for you."

The old man's face clouded, but only for an instant.

"My son," he said, "I am glad that I have intrusted my daughter to you.
You will bring her to Biskra in safety. At what hour do