Soon after, news came to me that my father was
dead so the governor despatched a courier to fetch me the
property he had left behind him, and now I am living in all
prosperity. This is how I came to lose my right hand." His story
amazed me (continued the Jew) and I abode with him three days,
after which he gave me much money and I set out and travelled,
till I reached this thy city. The sojourn liked me well, so I
took up my abode here and there befell me what thou knowest with
the hunchback.' Quoth the King, 'This thy story is not more
wonderful than that of the hunchback, and I will certainly hang
you all. However, there still remains the tailor, who was the
head of the offending.' Then he said to the tailor, 'O tailor, if
thou canst tell me aught more wonderful than the story of the
hunchback, I will pardon you all your offenses.' So the tailor
came forward and said, 'Know, O King of the age, that a most rare
thing happened to me yesterday before I fell in with the
hunchback.
The Tailor's Story.
Yesterday morning early I was at an entertainment given by a
friend of mine, at which there were assembled near twenty men of
the people of the city, amongst them tailors and silk-weavers and
carpenters and other craftsmen. As soon as the sun had risen,
they set food before us that we might eat, when behold, the
master of the house entered, and with him a comely young man, a
stranger from Baghdad, dressed in the finest of clothes and
perfectly handsome, except that he was lame.
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