embolden her to acquit herself better of her commission when a favourable opportunity might offer.
The next morning she repaired to the sultan’s palace with the present, as early as the day before, but when she came there, she found the gates of the divan shut, and understood that the council sat but every other day, therefore she must come again the next. This news she carried to her son, whose only relief was to guard himself with patience. She went six times afterward on the days appointed and placed herself always directly before the sultan, but with as little success as the first morning, and might have perhaps come a thousand times to as little purpose, if luckily the sultan himself had not taken particular notice of her.
On the sixth day, after the divan was broken up, when the sultan returned to his own apartment, he said to his grand vizier: “I have for some time observed a certain woman, who attends constantly every day that I give audience, with something wrapped up in a napkin: she always stands up from the beginning to the breaking up of the audience, and affects to place herself just before me. Do you know what she wants?”
“Sir,” replied the grand vizier, who knew no more than the sultan what she wanted, but did not wish to seem uninformed, “your majesty knows that women often make complaints on trifles; perhaps she may come to complain that somebody has sold her some bad flour, or some such trifling matter.” The sultan was not satisfied with this answer, but replied: “If this woman comes to our next audience, do not fail to call her, that I may hear what she has to say.” The grand vizier made answer by lowering his hand, and then lifting it up above his head, signifying his willingness to lose it if he failed.
By this time, the tailor’s widow was so much used to go to audience, and stand before the sultan, that she did not think it
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