'O
Esdras and Moses and the ten Commandments!' exclaimed he; 'O
Aaron and Joshua, son of Nun! I have stumbled against the sick
person and he has fallen downstairs and is dead! How shall I get
the body out of my house?' Then he took it up and carrying it
into the house, told his wife what had happened. Quoth she, 'Why
dost thou sit still? If he be found here when the day rises, we
shall both of us lose our lives. Let us carry him up to the roof
and throw him over into the house of our neighbour the Muslim;
for if he abide there a night, the dogs will come down on him
from the terraces and eat him all up.' Now the neighbour in
question was controller of the Sultan's kitchen and was wont to
bring home great store of fat and broken meats; but the cats and
mice used to eat it, or, if the dogs scented a fat sheep's tail,
they would come down from the roofs and tear at it; and in this
way he lost much of what he brought home. So the Jew and his wife
carried the hunchback up to the roof, and letting him down,
through the windshaft, into the controller's house, stood him up
against the wall and went away. Hardly had they done so, when the
controller, who had been spending the evening with some of his
friends, hearing a recitation of the Koran, came home and going
up with a lighted candle, found a man standing in the corner,
under the ventilator. When he saw this, he said, 'By Allah, this
is a fine thing! He who steals my goods is none other than a
man.
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