r of it,
unless you communicate it to him yourself."

"In that case I should be safe enough," said Sidi ibn Thalabi.
"However, to resume, what put the idea into my head in the first
instance was this. I was one day coming down to the river to spend the
day on board my boat, when I called at the shop or stall of a fruit
merchant in the bazaar to buy some fruit. I sat down in his shop while
I selected what I required and bargained as to the price. I was
surprised, in the first place, to find that instead of asking five or
six times the value of the fruit and abating his demand by degrees, as
is commonly the custom, the merchant, who treated me with extreme
deference, begged me to choose whatever fruit I pleased and pay him for
it as much as I might consider it to be worth."

"'What,' said I, 'do you leave the price to be fixed by me? Suppose I
give you but half the value of it?'

"'Sir,' answered the man, 'Allah forbid that your slave should venture
to put aside the veil in which you choose at this moment to envelop
yourself. Nevertheless, I am very sensible of the honour you have done
me in entering my shop and conversing familiarly with me, and truly the
shop and all it contains are altogether at your service.'

"'For whom do you take me, or mistake me,' said I, 'that you treat me
to so many compliments and good offers?'

"'Sir,' he replied, 'I have seen his Majesty the Caliph, whom may Allah
protect, ride by so often, both when he is going to and returning from
the Mosque, that it would be very strange if I could fail to recognize
his features, no matter what disguise he may choose to assume.
However, I will say no more, a merchant and no more than a merchant you
are if you will it so. To what place does it please you that I should
send you the fruit?'

"I denied again that I was the Commander of the Faithful, no matter how
much my features might resemble his; but perceiving that the man
retained his own opinion of my identity and received my disclaimers
only out of politeness, I thought it not worth while to argue the
question with him further, but desired him to send the fruit to me,
Sidi ibn Thalabi, on board this boat. At the same time, I must confess
that I so far yielded to the weakness of being flattered by being taken
for the Caliph in disguise that I gave the fruit merchant two dinars
for fruit which was not worth one quarter of that sum.

"On receiving the money, which he did with much humblene