The goldsmith took a pair of scales, weighed the plate, and after he had told Aladdin how much an ounce of fine silver contained and was worth, he demonstrated to him that his plate was worth by weight sixty pieces of gold, which he paid him down immediately. “If you dispute my honesty,” said he, “you may go to any other of our trade, and if he gives you any more, I will be bound to forfeit twice as much; for we gain only the fashion of the plate that we buy, and that the fairest dealing Jews do not.” Aladdin thanked him for his good advice, so greatly to his advantage, and never after went to any other person, but sold him all his plates and the basin, and had as much for them as the weight came to. Though Aladdin and his mother had an inexhaustible treasure of money in their lamp, and might have had whatever they had a mind to every time it failed, yet they lived with the same frugality as before, except that Aladdin went more neat: as for his mother, she wore no clothes but what she earned by her spinning cotton. After their manner of living, we may easily suppose that the money Aladdin had sold the plates and basin for was sufficient to maintain them some time. They went on for many years by the help of the produce Aladdin, from time to time, made of his lamp. During this time Aladdin frequented the shops of the principal merchants, where they sold cloth of gold and silver, and linens, silk stuffs, and jewellery, and oftentimes joining in their conversation, acquired a complete knowledge of the world, and assumed its manners. By his acquaintance among the jewellers, he came to know that the fine fruit which he had gathered when he took the lamp were not coloured glass, but stones of extraordinary value. For as he had seen all sorts of jewels bought and sold in their shops, but none that were so beautiful or so large as his, he found, that instead of coloured glass, he possessed an inestimable treasure; but had the prudence not to say anything of it to anyone, not even to his mother. One day, as Aladdin was walking about the town, he heard an order of the sultan’s published, for all people to shut up their shops and houses, and keep within doors, while the princess Badr-oul-boudour, the sultan’s daughter, went to the baths and back again. This public order inspired Aladdin with a great curiosity to see the princess’s face, which he could not do without getting into the house of some acquaintance, and through a window: but this did not satisfy him, when he considered that the princess, when she went to the baths, had a veil on; but to gratify his curiosity, he presently thought of a scheme which succeeded; that was, to place himself behind the door of the bath, which was so situated that he could not fail of seeing her face.