into trouble. One man laughs at my stupid beard, and
makes me believe that I am to make a suit of clothes for him--another
takes away the pattern--and a third substitutes a dead man's head for
it. Allah! Allah! I have got into the hands of a pretty nest of rogues,
a set of ill-begotten knaves!"

Upon which Mansouri placed his hand upon the tailor's mouth, and said,
"Say no more, say no more; you are getting deeper into the dirt. Do you
know whom you are abusing."

"I know not, nor care not," answered Babadul; "all I know is that
whoever gives me a dead man's head for a suit of clothes can only be an
infidel dog."

"Do you call God's viceregent upon earth, you old demi-stitching,
demi-praying fool, an infidel dog?" exclaimed Mansouri in a rage, which
entirely made him forget the precaution he had hitherto maintained
concerning his employer. "Are your vile lips to defile the name of him
who is the _Alem penah_, the refuge of the world? What dirt are you
eating, what ashes are you heaping on your head? Come, no more words;
tell me where the dead man's head is, or I will take yours of in his
stead."

Upon hearing this, the tailor stood with his mouth wide open, as if the
doors of his understanding had just been unlocked.

"_Aman, aman,_ Mercy, mercy, O Aga!" cried Babadul to Mansouri, "I was
ignorant of what I was saying. Who would have thought it? Ass, fool,
dolt, that I am, not to have known better. _Bismillah!_ in the name or
the Prophet, pray come to my house; your steps will be fortunate, and
your slave's head will touch the stars."

"I am in a hurry, a great hurry," said Mansouri. "Where is the head, the
head of the Aga of the Janissaries?"

When the tailor heard whose head it had been, and recollected what he
and his wife had done with it, his knees knocked under him with fear,
and he began to exude from every pore.

"Where is it, indeed?" said he. "Oh! what has come upon us! Oh! what
cursed _kismet_ (fate) is this?"

"Where is it?" exclaimed the slave, again and again, "where is it? speak
quick!"

The poor tailor was completely puzzled what to say, and kept floundering
from one answer to another until he was quite entangled as in a net.

"Have you burnt it?"

"No."

"Have you thrown it away?"

"No."

"Then in the name of the Prophet what have you done with it? Have you
ate it."

"No."

"Is it lying in your house?"

"No."

"Is it hiding at any other person's house?"

"No."

Then at las