172 THE ARABYAN NIGHTS.

He recollected that there lived in his neighbourhood a physi-
cian, who was a Jew, and he formed a plan which he directly
began to put in execution. He and his wife took up the body,
one by the head and the other by the feet, and carried it to the
physician’s house. They knocked at the door, which was at the
bottom of a steep and narrow flight of stairs that led to his
apartment. A maid-servant immediately came down without
even staying for a light, and opening the door, asked them what
they wanted. “I will thank you to go and tell your master,”
said the tailor, “that we have brought him a patient, who is very
ill, and for whom we request his advice. Stop,” added he, hold-
ing out a piece of money in his hand, “ give him this in advance,
that he may be assured we do not intend he should lose his
labour for nothing.” While the servant went back to inform her
master, the Jewish physician, of this good news, the tailor and
his wife quickly carried the body of the little hunchback up
stairs, left him close to the door, and returned home as fast as
possible.

In the mean time the servant went and told the physician
that aman and a woman were waiting for him at the door, and
requested him to go down to see a sick person whom they had
brought for that purpose. She then gave him the money she
had received from the tailor. “ Bring a light directly,” cried he
to the girl, ‘‘and follow me:” Having said this, he ran towards
the staircase in such a hurry, that he did not wait for the light ;
and encountering little hunchback, he gave him such a blow
with his foot, as sent him from the top of the stairs to the
bottom; and he had some difficulty to prevent himself from
following him. ‘Why don’t you come with the light ?” he called
out to the servant. She at last appeared, and they went down
stairs. When the physician found that what had rolled down
stairs turned out to be a dead man, he was so alarmed at the
sight, that he invoked Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Esdras, and all
the other prophets of the law, to his assistance. _“ Wretch that
I am!” exclaimed he, “why did I not wait for the light ? why
did I go down in the dark? J have completely killed the sick
man whom they brought to me.”

Notwithstanding the perplexity he was in, he had the precau-
tion to shut his door, for fear that as any one passed along the
street they might perchance discover the unfortunate accident,