my life long and praised thee
for the good thou hast done with my son." "O wife of my brother,"
answered he, "this is no manner of kindness in me, [200] for that
this is my son and it behoveth me stand in the stead of my brother his
father; so be thou easy." Quoth she, "I pray God, by the glory of the
ancients [201] and the moderns, that He let thee [live] and continue
thee, O my brother-in-law, and prolong me thy life, so thou mayst be
[as] a wing [202] to this orphan boy; and he shall still be under thine
obedience and thy commandment and shall do nought but that which thou
biddest him." "O wife of my brother," rejoined the Maugrabin, "Alaeddin
is a man of understanding and [the son of] decent folk, and my hope is
in God that he will follow in his father's footsteps and be the solace
of shine eyes; [203] but it irketh me that, to-morrow being Friday, I
cannot open him a shop. It being congregation day, all the merchants
will go out after prayers to the gardens and pleasaunces; but, God
willing, on Saturday, an it please the Creator, we will do our business.
Tomorrow I will come to you and take Alaeddin, that I may show him the
gardens and pleasaunces without the city,--it may be he hath not
yet seen them,--and he shall see the merchant-folk and the notables
a-pleasuring there, so he may become acquainted with them and they with
him." [204]

The [205] Maugrabin lay the night in his lodging; and on the morrow he
came to the tailor's house and knocked at the door. Alaeddin--of the
excess of his joy in the clothes he had donned and of the pleasures he
had enjoyed on the past day, what with the bath and eating and drinking
and viewing the folk and the thought that his uncle was coming in the
morning to take him and show him the gardens--slept not that night
neither closed an eye and thought the day would never break. [206] So,
when he heard a knocking at the door, he went out at once in haste, like
a spark of fire, and opening, found his uncle the Maugrabin. The latter
embraced him and kissed him and took him by the hand, saying, "O son of
my brother, to-day I will show thee a thing such as thou never sawest in
thy life." Then they went off together and the Maugrabin fell to making
merry with [207] Alaeddin and amusing him with familiar talk. They went
forth the gate of the city and the Maugrabin proceeded to walk with him
among the gardens and to show him the fine pleasaunces and marvellous
high-builded palaces; and whena