cupidity, now that I had seen money glistening
before me, I began to complain that I had received so little, and again
expressed to Ali Mohamed my wish of bringing the case before the cadi;
'for,' said I, 'if I am entitled to these five hundred reals, I am
entitled to all my father left; and you will acknowledge that this must
be but a very small part of his savings.'

'Friend,' said he, 'listen to the words of an old man. Keep what you
have got, and be content. In going before the cadi, the first thing you
will have to do will be to give of your certain, to get at that most
cursed of all property, the uncertain. Be assured that after having
drained you of your four hundred and fifty reals, and having got five
hundred from your opponents, you will have the satisfaction to hear him
tell you both to "go in peace, and do not trouble the city with your
disputes." Have you not lived long enough in the world to have learnt
this common saying--"Every one's teeth are blunted by acids, except the
cadi's, which are by sweets"?

'The cadi who takes five cucumbers as a bribe, will admit any evidence
for ten beds of melons.'

After some deliberation, I determined to take the advice of the capiji;
for it was plain that if I intended to prosecute any one, it could only
be my mother and the akhon; and to do that, I should raise such a host
of enemies, and give rise to such unheard-of scandal, that perhaps I
should only get stoned by the populace for my pains.

'I will dispose of everything I have at Ispahan,' said I to my adviser,
'and, having done that, will leave it never to return, unless under
better circumstances. It shall never see me more,' exclaimed I, in a
vapouring fit, 'unless I come as one having authority.'

Little did I think, when I made this vain speech, how diligently my good
stars were at work to realize what it had expressed.

The capiji applauded my intention; the more so, as he took some little
interest that my resolutions should be put into practice; for he had a
son, a barber, whom he wished to set up in business; and what could be
more desirable, in every respect, than to see him installed in the shop
in which my poor father had flourished so successfully, close to his
post at the caravanserai?

He made proposals that I should dispose of the shop and all its
furniture to him, which I agreed to do, upon the evaluation of some
well-known brother of the strap, and thus I was relieved of one of my
remaining