Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 1
General
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 1
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
By the next night they had eaten all the provisions the genie had
brought; and the next day Aladdin, who could not bear the thoughts of
hunger, took one of the silver plates under his coat, and went out early
to sell it, and addressing himself to a Jew whom he met in the streets,
took him aside, and pulling out the plate, asked him if he would buy it.
The cunning Jew took the plate and examined it, and no sooner found that
it was good silver, but he asked Aladdin how much he valued it at.
Aladdin, who knew not the value of it, and never had been used to such
traffic, told him he would trust to his judgment and honour. The Jew was
somewhat confounded at this plain dealing; and doubting whether Aladdin
understood the material or the full value of what he offered him to
sell, he took a piece of gold out of his purse, and gave it him, though
it was but the sixtieth part of the worth of the plate. Aladdin took the
money very eagerly, and, as soon as he got it in his pocket, retired
with so much haste, that the Jew, not content with the exorbitancy of
his profit, was vexed he had not penetrated into Aladdin’s ignorance,
and was going to run after him, to endeavour to get some change out of
the piece of gold; but Aladdin ran so fast, and had got so far, that it
would have been impossible for him to overtake him.
Before Aladdin went home to his mother he called at a baker’s, bought a
loaf, changed his money, and went home, and gave the rest to his mother,
who went and bought provisions enough to last them some time. After this
manner they lived, till Aladdin had sold the twelve plates, one at a
time, to the Jew, for the same money; who, after the first time, durst
not offer him less, for fear of losing so good a chap. When he had sold
the last plate, he had recourse to the basin, which weighed ten times as
much as the plate, and would have carried it to his old purchaser, but
that it was too large and cumbersome; therefore he was obliged to bring
him home with him to his mother’s, where the Jew had examined the weight
of the basin, he laid down ten pieces of gold, with which Aladdin was
very well satisfied.
They lived on these ten pieces in a frugal manner a pretty while; and
Aladdin, who had been used to an idle life, left off playing with young
lads of his own age ever since his adventure with the African magician.
He spent his time in walking about, and talking with people with whom he
had got acquainted. Sometimes he would stop at the most capital
merchants’ shops, where people of distinction met, and listen to their
discourse, by which he gained some little knowledge of the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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