' 'Make haste,' said the Sultan, 'and tell me how this
happened and who hath dealt thus with thee, whose honour is a
part of my own honour.' 'Know then, O my lord,' replied the
Vizier, 'that I went out this day to the slave-market to buy me a
cook-maid, when I saw in the bazaar a damsel, whose like for
beauty I never beheld. She pleased me and I thought to buy her
for our lord the Sultan; so I asked the broker of her and her
owner, and he replied, "She belongs to Noureddin Ali son of Fezl
ben Khacan." Now our lord the Sultan aforetime gave his father
ten thousand dinars to buy him a handsome slave-girl, and he
bought therewith this damsel, who pleased him, so that he grudged
her to our lord the Sultan and gave her to his own son. When Fezl
died, his son sold all that he possessed of houses and gardens
and household stuff and squandered the price, till he became
penniless. Then he brought the girl down to the market, to
sell her, and handed her to the broker, who cried her and the
merchants bid for her, till her price reached four thousand
dinars; whereupon I said to myself, "I will buy her for our lord
the Sultan, for it was his money that paid for her." So I said to
Noureddin, "O my son, sell her to me for four thousand dinars."
He looked at me and replied, "O pestilent old man, I will sell
her to a Jew or a Christian rather than to thee!" "I do not buy
her for myself," said I, "but for our lord and benefactor the
Sultan.
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