‘WE lived together for the space of a month,’ related the second of the three ladies of Baghdad to Haroun al Rashid, Ja’far the Wezir, and Mesroor the Executioner, ‘after which I begged my husband that he would allow me to go to the bazaar to purchase some stuffs for dress.’ She went, accompanied by the inevitable old woman, to the house of a young merchant whose father had recently died, leaving him great wealth. ‘He produced all we wanted, and we handed him the money, but he refused to take it, saying: “It is an offer of hospitality for your visit.” I said: “If he will not take the money, I will return to him the stuffs.” But he would not receive it again, and exclaimed: “By Allah! I will take nothing from you; all this is a present from me for a single kiss, which I will value more than the contents of my whole shop.”’ The Khalifeh, when the story was concluded--it went on through many and surprising adventures--expressed no astonishment at the young man’s generosity. Such an exaggerated view of hospitality seemed to him quite natural on the part of a shopkeeper, nor did he pause to inquire whether the inflammable young man found that the wealth which his father had left him increased with any rapidity through his transactions with pretty ladies. So reckless a disposition is no longer to be found among Eastern merchants; shopping is now conducted purely on business principles, though it is not without a charm which is absent from Western counters. Instead of the sleek young man, indistinguishable from his fellows, you have the turbaned Turk, bundled up in multitudinous baggy garments, which he holds round him with one hand, while he takes down his goods with the other; or the keen-featured Persian, from whom you need hope to make no large profit, wrapped in closely-hanging robes, his white linen shirt buttoned neatly across his brown chest; or the specious Armenian in his red fez, cunning and voluble, an easy liar, asking impossible prices for worthless objects, and hoping to ingratiate you by murmuring with a leer that he remembers seeing your face in Spitalfields last time he was there. Shopping with these merchants is not merely the going through of certain forms for the acquisition of necessary commodities--it is an end in itself, an art which combines many social arts, an amusement which will not pall, though many hours be devoted to it, a study in character and national characteristics.