owest prostrations before the tailor, in great apparent trepidation,
approached him, placed it at his feet, kissed the ground, and retreated
without saying a word, or even looking up.

"Well," said Babadul to himself: "this may be something very fine, and
I may be some very great personage, for aught I know; but this is very
certain, that I had rather be patching my old cloak in the stall than
doing this job, however grand and lucrative it may be. Who knows what
I may have been brought here for? These comings in and goings out of
strange-looking people, apparently without tongues in their heads,
do not argue well. I wish they would give me fewer bows and a greater
supply of words, from which I might learn what I am to get by all this.
I have heard of poor women having been sewn up in sacks and thrown into
the sea. Who knows? perhaps I am destined to be the tailor on such an
occasion."

He had scarcely got thus far in his soliloquy when the slave Mansouri
re-entered the room and told him, without more words, to take up the
bundle; which having done, his eyes were again blindfolded, and he was
led to the spot from whence he came. Babadul, true to his agreement,
asked no questions, but agreed with the slave that in three days the
dress should be ready for delivery at his stall for which he was to
receive ten more pieces of gold.

Having got rid of his companion, he proceeded with all haste to his
house, where he knew his wife would be impatiently waiting his return;
and as he walked onwards he congratulated himself that at length he had
succeeded in getting indeed a job worth the having, and that his fate
had finally turned up something good for his old age. It was about two
o'clock in the morning when he reached the door of his house. He was
received by his wife with expressions of great impatience at his long
absence; but when he held up the bundle to her face, as she held up
the lamp to his, and when he said, "_Mujdeh_, give me a reward for good
news:--see, I have got my work, and a handsome reward we shall get when
it is finished," she was all smiles and good humour.

"Leave it there till we get up, and let us go to bed now," said the
tailor.

"No, no," said the wife, "I must look at what you have got before I
retire, or I shall not be able to sleep": upon which, whilst he held up
the lamp she opened the bundle. Guess, guess at the astonishment of the
tailor and his wife, when, instead of seeing a suit of clothes,