182 THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.

from going on the intermediate days of the week to pass the
morning sometimes with one merchant and sometimes with
another.

“ One Monday, while I was sitting in one of these merchants’
shops, whose name was Bedreddin, a lady of distinction, as I
easily conjectured, both by her air and dress, and also by a
female slave neatly attired, who followed her, entered the same
shop, and sat down close to me. Her external appearance,
joined to a certain natural grace in everything she did, preju-
diced me very much in her favour, and excited a great desire in
me to know more of her than I did. At length I obtained a
glimpse of her face, which completed her conquest over me.

“ After she had conversed some time with the merchant upon
indifferent subjects, she told him that she was in search of a
particular sort of stuff, with a gold ground; and that she came
to his shop because it contained the best assortment of goods of
any in the market ; and that if he had such a thing, he would
much oblige her by shewing it to her. Bedreddin opened a
good many different pieces, and having fixed upon one, she
stopped and asked the price of it. He said he could afford to
sell it her for eleven hundred drachms of silver. ‘I will agree
to give you that sum,’ she replied, ‘though I have not the
money about me ; but I hope you will give me credit for it, and
I will not fail to send you eleven hundred drachms in the course
of to-morrow.’ ‘Madam,’ answered the merchant, ‘I would give
you credit with the greatest pleasure, and you should have full
permission to take the stuff home with you, if it belonged to
me; but it is the property of this young man, whom you see
there, and this is one of the days fixed upon to give an account
of the money for which his goods are sold” ‘How comes it,”
cried the lady, ‘that you treat me in this manner? take your
stuff, and confound you, and all of your fellow-merchants, for
you are all alike, and have no regard for any one but yourselves,’
Having said this, she rose up in a passion, and went away.

“When I saw that the lady was gone, I began to feel very
much interested about her, and before she was too far off, I
called her back, and said, ‘Do me, madam, the favour to return,
and perhaps I shall find a way to accommodate and satisfy both
yourself and the merchant.” She came back, but made me un-
derstand it was entirely on my account. ‘Sir,’ said I, at this