394 THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.

hunger. You have done as all people in your station generally
do. If they gain an extraordinary advantage, or any good for-
tune unexpectedly happens to them, they leave their work, they
amuse themselves, they regale themselves, and they live well
as long as the money lasts; and when it is done, they find
themselves in the same miserable situation, and with the same
wants they before had.” “ Sir,’ I replied, “I suffer patiently
all these reproaches, and I am ready to bear still more cruel
ones if you can find in your heart to utter them; but I hear
them with more patience, because I am conscious I do not
deserve them. The circumstance, strange as it is, is so well
known in this place, that there is not a creature who will not
bear witness to it.”

Saad took my part, and he related to Saadi so many histories
of kites not less surprising than mine, some of which he had
himself known, that the latter again drew his purse out of his
bosom. He counted two hundred pieces of gold into my hand,
which I soon put into my bosom for want of a purse. When
Saadi had finished telling out this sum, “ Hassan,” said he, “1
wish once more to make you a present of two hundred pieces of
gold, but take care to put them in a safe place, that you may
not lose them so unfortunately as you lost the others : and mind
that they procure you the benefits which the others ought to
have done.”

After they were gone, I returned to my work: I then went
into my house, my wife and children being at that time from
home. I laid aside ten pieces of gold out of the two hundred;
and I wrapped the hundred and ninety pieces in some linen and
tied it up. It was necessary to hide the linen in a safe place.
After having thought for some time about it, I determined to
put it at the bottom of a large earthen pot full of bran, which
stood in a corner where I supposed neither my wife nor children
would be likely to find it. My wife returned soon after, and as
I had but little hemp left, without telling her I had seen the two
friends, I said I was going out to buy some.

I went out, but whilst I was gone to make this purchase a
man who sells fullers’ earth, such as women make use of in the
bath, happened to pass through the street and cried it.

My wife, who had not any of this earth, called to the man, and
as she had not any money she asked him if he would take a pot