his love to you,
and promising to come and pay you a visit, that he may see the house
my father lived and died in."

"Indeed, child," replied the mother, "your father had no brother, nor
have you an uncle."

The next day the magician found Aladdin playing in another part of the
town, and embracing him as before, put two pieces of gold into his
hand, and said to him, "Carry this, child, to your mother. Tell her
that I will come and see her to-night, and bid her get us something
for supper. But first show me the house where you live."

Aladdin showed the African magician the house, and carried the two
pieces of gold to his mother, who went out and bought provisions; and
considering she wanted various utensils, borrowed them of her
neighbors. She spent the whole day in preparing the supper; and at
night, when it was ready, said to her son, "Perhaps the stranger knows
not how to find our house; go and bring him, if you meet with him."

Aladdin was just ready to go, when the magician knocked at the door,
and came in loaded with wine and all sorts of fruits, which he brought
for a dessert. After he had given what he brought into Aladdin's
hands, he saluted his mother, and desired her to show him the place
where his brother Mustapha used to sit on the sofa; and when she had
so done, he fell down, and kissed it several times, crying out, with
tears in his eyes, "My poor brother! how unhappy am I, not to have
come soon enough to give you one last embrace!"

Aladdin's mother desired him to sit down in the same place, but he
declined.

"No," said he, "I shall not do that; but give me leave to sit opposite
to it, that although I see not the master of a family so dear to me, I
may at least behold the place where he used to sit."

When the magician had made choice of a place, and sat down, he began
to enter into discourse with Aladdin's mother.

"My good sister," said he, "do not be surprised at your never having
seen me all the time you have been married to my brother Mustapha of
happy memory. I have been forty years absent from this country, which
is my native place as well as my late brother's. During that time I
have traveled into the Indies, Persia, Arabia, and Syria, and
afterward crossed over into Africa, where I took up my abode in Egypt.
At last, as it is natural for a man, I was desirous to see my native
country again, and to embrace my dear brother; and finding I had
strength enough to undertake so long a journe