After corking the vase tightly down, he
carried it to one of his friends, a merchant like himself, and said to
him:

"My brother, you have probably heard that I am staffing with a caravan
in a few days for Mecca. I have come to ask whether you would do me
the favour to keep this vase of olives for me till I come back?"

The merchant replied readily, "Look, this is the key of my shop: take
it, and put the vase wherever you like. I promise that you shall find
it in the same place on your return."

A few days later, Ali Cogia mounted the camel that he had laden with
merchandise, joined the caravan, and arrived in due time at Mecca.
Like the other pilgrims he visited the sacred Mosque, and after all his
religious duties were performed, he set out his goods to the best
advantage, hoping to gain some customers among the passers-by.

Very soon two merchants stopped before the pile, and when they had
turned it over, one said to the other:

"If this man was wise he would take these things to Cairo, where he
would get a much better price than he is likely to do here."

Ali Cogia heard the words, and lost no time in following the advice.
He packed up his wares, and instead of returning to Bagdad, joined a
caravan that was going to Cairo. The results of the journey gladdened
his heart. He sold off everything almost directly, and bought a stock
of Egyptian curiosities, which he intended selling at Damascus; but as
the caravan with which he would have to travel would not be starting
for another six weeks, he took advantage of the delay to visit the
Pyramids, and some of the cities along the banks of the Nile.

Now the attractions of Damascus so fascinated the worthy Ali, that he
could hardly tear himself away, but at length he remembered that he had
a home in Bagdad, meaning to return by way of Aleppo, and after he had
crossed the Euphrates, to follow the course of the Tigris.

But when he reached Mossoul, Ali had made such friends with some
Persian merchants, that they persuaded him to accompany them to their
native land, and even as far as India, and so it came to pass that
seven years had slipped by since he had left Bagdad, and during all
that time the friend with whom he had left the vase of olives had never
once thought of him or of it. In fact, it was only a month before Ali
Cogia's actual return that the affair came into his head at all, owing
to his wife's remarking one day, that it was a long time since she had