" And Bedreddin answered,
"I will well, O uncle." With this the cook went to the bazaar,
where he bought him a handsome suit of clothes and made him put
it on, then carried him to the Cadi and formally acknowledged him
as his son. So Bedreddin passed in Damascus for the cook's son
and abode with him, sitting in the shop to take the money.
To return to the Lady of Beauty. When the day broke and she awoke
from sleep, she missed Bedreddin from her side and thought he had
gone to the lavatory, so lay expecting him awhile, when behold,
her father entered. Now he was sore at heart by reason of what
had passed between him and the Sultan and for that he had married
his daughter by force to one of his servants, and he a lump of a
hunchbacked groom; and he said to himself, "If she have suffered
this damnable fellow to possess her, I will kill her." So he came
to the door of the alcove and cried out, "Ho, Lady of Beauty!"
She replied, "Here am I, O my lord"; and came out tottering for
joy, with a face whose brightness and beauty had redoubled for
that she had lain in the arms of that gazelle,[FN#64] and kissed
the ground before her father. When the Vizier saw her thus, he
said to her, "O accursed woman, dost thou rejoice in this groom?"
At these words, the Lady of Beauty smiled and said, "O my lord,
let what happened yesterday suffice, when all the folk were
laughing at me and flouting me with that groom, who is not worth
the paring of one of my husband's nails.
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