where you will meet with the person who is to decide your destiny.” After they had explained to me the road I was to travel, I departed.
On the road I caused my beard and eyebrows to be shaven, and assumed a calender’s habit. I have had a long journey, but at last I arrived this evening, and met these, my brother calenders, at the gate. We were mutually surprised to see that we were all blind of the same eye; but we had not leisure to converse long on the subject of our misfortunes.
The third calender having finished the relation of his adventures, Zobeide addressed him and his fellow-calenders thus: “Go wherever you think proper; you are at liberty.” But one of them answered, “Madam, we beg you to pardon our curiosity, and permit us to hear the stories of your other guests who have not yet spoken.” Then the lady turned to the caliph, the vizier Giafar, and Mesrour, and said to them, “It is now your turn to speak.”
The grand vizier answered Zobeide: “Madam, we need only repeat what we have already said to the fair lady who opened the door. We are merchants come to Bagdad to sell our merchandise, which lies in the khan where we lodge. We dined to-day with several other persons of our condition, at a merchant’s house of this city; who after he had treated us with choice dainties and excellent wines, sent for men and women dancers and musicians. The great noise we made brought in the watch, who arrested some of the company,
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