I did not reply, but followed for half an hour through streets which were now almost empty of people. We entered at last a street narrower than the others, paved with cobblestones and without a sidewalk, and stopped before a shop over whose door, by way of a sign, hung a yardstick and a pair of shears. It seemed a mean enough abode for the ruler of the city, but Figli, without hesitating, opened the door and went in. The room inside was dark, but I could see a tailor’s bench and implements, and a disorderly array of half-finished garments, covered with dust. The boy opened a door at the rear, and I followed him along a dark passage to another door, which Figli threw open to a flood of light. _Babadag the Tailor, Goolk the Spider, and the Eight Tailors_ We were standing in a magnificent apartment, paved with colored marble, hung and spread with soft rugs, and lit with hundreds of tapers. At the left, near the wall, was sitting an old man, and behind his chair, from ceiling to floor, was a gigantic spider’s web, which glistened like silver in the candlelight. In the center of this web was a great green spider, with five or six small black spiders about him. Against the opposite wall, on a tailor’s bench, eight men, totally without eyebrows, were sitting cross-legged, each bending over a bowl held on his knees, filled with what looked like shreds of hair, and engaged in some kind of work with tiny knitting needles. The old man’s gross and heavy body was clothed in a gorgeous robe of pale yellow silk, like that which the boy had thrown in the mud, but embroidered with spider’s webs of spun gold, and studded with rubies and amethysts. His face, a rather jovial face, was covered with gray hair, which hung over his breast, and his eyes shone like sparks behind a pair of the shaggiest eyebrows I had ever seen. He gazed at me calmly, and held out a hand to his son. The boy went to him, and Babadag the Tailor put an arm about him and said, with very obvious tenderness: “My boy, you are late. And your robe and hat! Where are they?” The boy threw himself on his knees beside his father, and cried, “Oh, father! I couldn’t wear them any longer. I couldn’t! They’re hateful! I don’t want to be dressed in silk! I want to be poor like the others! I can’t wear them any longer, I can’t, I can’t!” [Illustration: “You are welcome, master peddler,” said Babadag] The old man smiled kindly. “Never mind, my son, never mind. I’ll not scold you. We’ll think no more about it. Who is the visitor you have brought with you?” “It’s a peddler,” said Figli, standing up. “I don’t know his name; a peddler I met by chance, and I’d like you to buy me something from his pack.” I stepped forward, made my bow, and dropped my pack to the floor. “You are welcome, master peddler,” said Babadag. The green spider gave a sharp twitch, which set the whole web quivering. “Quiet, Goolk!” said Babadag.