ss and many
profound salutations, the merchant said--

"'Sidi ibn Thalabi, as so you desire to be called, I give you many
thanks for your liberality, and I pray you not to be offended with me
if I seize the present opportunity to beg a favour of you.'

"'If,' said I, 'it is in my power to do what you wish, I assure you
that, far from taking offence, I shall oblige you gladly.'

"'Your kind words,' said the merchant, 'fill me with joy, because my
request is entirely within your power to grant. I have an only son,
let him come to you and employ him in any office for which you may
judge him to be fit.'

"'On condition,' I answered, 'that you bear in mind that I am simply
Sidi ibn Thalabi and no one else, I am ready to see and employ your son
if you so desire.'

"The fruit merchant vowed that no word of either himself or his son
should betray the belief that I was any other than what I represented
myself, namely, Sidi ibn Thalabi, a retired merchant taking his ease in
his boat upon the Tigris. On this understanding the young man came to
me, and finding him to be a very agreeable and well-educated young
fellow, I have employed him in the office of my secretary.

"Being possessed of property at Bussora and other towns, I am often
absent from Bagdad, and only occasionally take my pleasure here on my
boat just as the humour seizes me. Whether misled by these absences,
or whether accepting his father's opinion without question, I know not,
but I soon discovered that, not only did my new secretary believe me to
be the Caliph, but that he had spread this rumour of me among a great
number of the river-side population. Perhaps he discovered that he
himself was in consequence held in greater esteem, Allah alone
knows--at any rate he hesitated not to spread the false report
concerning me.

"It thus came to pass that, not only was I often received in any
company in which I chanced to find myself with an amount of respect and
deference to which I was really by no means entitled, but people who
were strangers to me asked me to social gatherings and feasts under the
mistaken notion that they were thereby securing themselves personal
intercourse with the dreaded and illustrious Haroun Alraschid himself.

"As often as possible I refused these invitations, but could not avoid
now and then coming into a mixed society, where I soon perceived that
my fame had preceded me. On those occasions, should any dispute arise,
it was not u