" "Gloomy," I said, "you would
look gloomy if you were a prisoner, and had lost ten thousand dirhems."
"What, is this trash worth ten thousand dirhems?" said he. "With the
fifty per cent. I was to make at Hamadan." "Fifty per cent.," said he;
"you are an old knave." "Knave! I should like to hear any one call me
knave at Bagdad." "Well, knave or not, you may get out of this scrape."
"How?" "Why you are a respectable-looking man," said he, "and are a good
Moslem into the bargain, I warrant." "That I am," said I, "although you
be a Jew: but how the faith is to serve me here I am sure I don't
know, unless the angel Gabriel, as in the fifty-fifth verse of the
twenty-seventh chapter of the Koran----"'
'Tush, tush!' exclaimed Hassan; 'to the point.'
'I always am at the point, only you put me out. However, to make it
as short as possible, the captain knows all about your coming, and is
frightened out of his wits, although he did talk big; I could easily see
that. And he let me go, you see, with some of my slaves, and gave me an
order for five thousand dirhems on one Bostenay, of Hamadan (perhaps
you know him; is he a good man?), on condition that I would fall in with
you, and, Mohammed forgive me, tell you a lie!'
'A lie!'
'Yes, a lie; but these Jewish dogs do not understand what a truly
religious man is, and when I began to tell the lie, I was soon put
out.
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