" "Good," answered he. So she gave him
a dish and half a dinar, and he returned to the shop and said to
Bedreddin, "We have made a wager about thy cookery in our lord's
household, for they have pomegranate-seed there also; so give me
half a dinar's worth of thy confection and let it be of thy best,
for I have eaten my bellyful of stick on account of thy cookery."
Bedreddin laughed and answered, "By Allah, none can dress this
dish aright but myself and my mother, and she is far away." Then
he filled the dish with pomegranate-seed and finishing it off
with musk and rose-water, gave it to the eunuch, who hastened
back with it and delivered it to Bedreddin's mother. No sooner
had she tasted it and remarked the excellence of its flavour and
cookery, than she knew who had dressed it and shrieked and fell
down in a swoon, to the amazement of the Vizier, who sprinkled
rose-water on her, till she came to herself and said, "If my son
be yet of this world, none made this conserve but he! Without
doubt, this cook is my son Bedreddin Hassan, for none knew how to
dress this dish but he and I, and I taught him." The Vizier
rejoiced greatly at her words, and said, "O how I long to see my
brother's son! I wonder if the days will indeed reunite us with
him! But it is to God alone that we look for reunion with him."
Then he went out forthright and said to his men, "Let twenty of
you go to the cook's shop and demolish it; then tie his hands
behind him with the linen of his turban, saying, 'It was thou
madest that vile mess of pomegranate-seed,' and bring him hither
by force, but without doing him any hurt.
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