THE BARBER’S SECOND BROTHER. 235
ground of my brother. She ran round the gallery two or three
times, then turned off down a long dark passage, where she
saved herself by a turn of which my brother was ignorant.
Bakbarah, who kept constantly following her, lost sight of her
in this passage, and he was also obliged to run much slower,
because it was so dark. He at last perceived a light towards
which he made all possible haste ; he went out through a door
which was instantly shut upon him,

You may easily imagine what was his astonishment at finding
himself in the middle of a street, inhabited by curriers. Nor
were they less surprised at seeing him, his eyebrows painted red
and without either beard or mustachios. They began to clap
their hands, to hoot at him; and some even ran after him, and
kept lashing him with strips of their leather.

To complete his misfortune, they led him through the street
where the judge of the police lived, and this magistrate imme-
diately sent to inquire into the cause of the uproar. The curriers
informed him that they saw my brother, exactly in the state he
then was, come out of the gate leading to the apartments of the
ladies belonging to the grand vizier, which opened into their
street, The judge then ordered the unfortunate Bakbarah, upon
the spot, to receive a hundred strokes upon the soles of his
feet, to be conducted without the city, and forbid him ever to
enter it again.

This, Commander of the Faithful, said I to thecaliph Mostanser
Billah, is the history of my second brother, which I wished to
relate to your majesty. He knew not, poor fellow, that the
ladies of our great and powerful lords amuse themselves by
making such fun as this with any young man who is silly enough
to trust himself in their hands,

The barber tnen went on without any inerrupticn to the
history of his third brother.