e son of a
schoolmaster, who, perceiving that I was endowed with a very retentive
memory, made me read and repeat to him most of the histories with which
our language abounds; and when he found that he had furnished my mind
with a sufficient assortment, he turned me out into the world under
the garb of dervish, to relate them in public to such audiences as my
talents might gather round me.

'My first essays were anything but successful. My auditors heard my
stories, and then walked away without leaving me any reward for my
pains. Little by little I acquired experience. Instead of being carried
away, as I had at first permitted myself to he, by the interest of the
story, I made a pause when the catastrophe drew near, and then, looking
around me, said, "All ye that are present, if you will be liberal
towards me, I will tell you what follows;" and I seldom failed in
collecting a good handful of copper coin. For instance, in the story of
the Prince of Khatai and the Princess of Samarcand, when the Ogre _Hezar
Mun_ seizes the prince, and is about to devour him; when he is suspended
in the ogre's mouth, between his upper and lower jaw; when the princess,
all dishevelled and forlorn, is on her knees praying that he may be
spared; when the attendants couch their lances, and are in dismay; when
the horses start back in fright; when the thunder rolls, and the ogre
growls; then I stop, and say, "Now, my noble hearers, open your purses,
and you shall hear in how miraculous a manner the Prince of Khatai cut
the ogre's head off!" By such arts, I manage to extract a subsistence
from the curiosity of men; and when my stock of stories is exhausted in
one place, I leave it, travel to another, and there renew my labours.'

[Illustration: Hajji and the disguised Mohtesib. 9.jpg]

CHAPTER XII

Hajji Baba finds that fraud does not remain unpunished, even in this
world--He makes fresh plans.

The dervishes having finished their narratives, I thanked them for
the entertainment and instruction which they had afforded me, and I
forthwith resolved to learn as much from them as possible, in order
to become a dervish myself, in case I should be obliged to abandon my
present business. Dervish Sefer instructed me in the numerous tricks
which he practised, to impose himself upon the world as a person of
great sanctity; I learned the art of writing talismans from the second;
and the story-teller taught me some of the tales with which his h