When Aladdin had thus settled matters, he told the genie he would call for him when he wanted him, and thereupon the genie disappeared. Aladdin’s thoughts now were only of answering, as soon as possible, the desire the sultan had shown to see him. He despatched one of the forty slaves to the palace, with an order to address himself to the chief of the officers, to know when he might have the honour to come and throw himself at the sultan’s feet. The slave soon acquitted himself of his message, and brought for answer that the sultan waited for him with impatience. Aladdin immediately mounted his horse, and began his march in the order we have already described: and though he was never on a horse’s back before, he appeared with such extraordinary grace, that the most experienced horseman would not have taken him for a novice. The streets through which he was to pass were almost instantly filled with an innumerable concourse of people, who made the air echo with their acclamations, especially every time the six slaves who carried the purses threw handfuls of gold into the air on both sides. Neither did these acclamations and shouts of joy come only from those who scrambled for the money, but from a superior rank of people, who could not forbear applauding publicly Aladdin’s generosity. Not only those who knew him once when he played in the streets like a vagabond, did not know him again; those who saw him but a little while before hardly knew him, so much were his features altered: such were the effects of the lamp, as to procure by degrees to those who possessed it perfections agreeable to the rank the right use of it advanced them to. Much more attention was paid to Aladdin’s person than to the pomp and magnificence of his attendants, which had been taken notice of the day before, when the slaves walked in procession with the present to the sultan. Nevertheless the horse was very much admired by good judges, who knew not how to discern his beauties, without being dazzled with the jewels and richness of the furniture: and when the report was everywhere spread about, that the sultan was going to give the princess Badr-oul-boudour in marriage to him, nobody regarded his birth; nor envied his good fortune, so worthy he seemed of it. When he arrived at the palace, everything was prepared for his reception; and when he came to the second gate, he would have alighted from off his horse, agreeable to the custom observed by the grand vizier, the generals of the armies, and governors of provinces of the first rank; but the chief of the officers, who waited on him by the sultan’s order, prevented him, and attended him to the council hall, where he helped him to dismount; though Aladdin opposed him very much, but could not prevail. The officers formed themselves into two ranks at the entrance of the hall. The chief put Aladdin on his right hand, and through the midst of them led him to the sultan’s throne.