“Yea, and that I would,” replied the mendicant artfully, “were all as honest as thou lookest and as kind. Yet have I traveled far without food, and I know not where I may rest this night.... A tale of the great caliph and the Princess Yanee and the noble Yussuf, stolen and found again. And the great treasury sealed and guarded, yet entered and robbed by one who was not found. Anna—but a score of anna, and I begin! What? Are all in Hodeidah so poor that a tale of love and pleasure and danger and great palaces and great princes and caliphs and thieves can remain untold for the want of a few anna—for so many as ten dropped into my tambour? A marvelous tale! A marvelous tale!” He paused and gazed speculatively about, holding out his tambour. His audience looked dubiously and curiously at him; who now was this latest teller of wonders, and from whence had he come? An anna was not much, to be sure, and a tale well told—well—yet there had been tellers of such whose tales were as dull as the yawn of a camel. “An excellent tale, sayst thou?” queried Parfi cautiously. “Then, if it be so marvelous, why not begin? For a handful of anna one may promise anything.” “A great promiser there was here once,” commented Ajeeb, the gossip, sententiously, “and he sat himself in this self-same door. I remember him well. He wore a green turban, but a greater liar there never was. He promised wonders and terrors enough, but it came to nothing—not a demon or Jinn in it.” “Is it of demons and Jinns only that thou thinkest, donkey?” demanded Haifa. “Verily, there are wonders and mysteries everywhere, without having them in tales.” “Yea, but a tale need not be for profit, either,” said Waidi, the water-seller. “It is for one’s leisure, at the end of a day. I like such as end happily, with evil punished and the good rewarded.” “Come, O friends,” insisted Gazzar-al-Din, seeing that one or two were interested, “for a score of anna I begin. Of Yemen it is, this very Yemen, and Baghdad, once a greater city than any to-day—” “Begin then,” said Azad Bakht, the barber. “Here is an anna for thee,” and he tossed a coin in the tambour. “And here is another for thee,” observed Haifa, fishing in his purse. “I do not mind risking it.” “And here is another,” called Soudi condescendingly. “Begin.” “And here is yet another,” added Parfi grandiosely. “Now, then, thy tale, and look thee that it is as thou sayst, marvelous.” And they squatted about him on the ground. But Gazzar, determined not to begin until he had at least ten anna, the price of a bowl of curds and a cup of kishr, waited until he had accumulated so many, as well as various “Dogs!” and “Pigs!” and “Wilt thou begin, miser, or wilt thou fill thy tambour?” into the bargain. He then crouched upon his rags, lifted his hand for silence, and began: