THE NARRATIVE OF SIDI IBN THALABI. "I must first tell you, friend Hamad," he began, for Haroun and Giafer were known to him only by their assumed names of Hamad and Yussuf--"I must first tell you how it came about that I was induced to personate our sovereign lord, Haroun Alraschid, whom may Allah preserve, and from whose ears may the story of my presumption be hidden for ever." "I should say," said Haroun, "that he is never likely to hear of it, unless you communicate it to him yourself." "In that case I should be safe enough," said Sidi ibn Thalabi. "However, to resume, what put the idea into my head in the first instance was this. I was one day coming down to the river to spend the day on board my boat, when I called at the shop or stall of a fruit merchant in the bazaar to buy some fruit. I sat down in his shop while I selected what I required and bargained as to the price. I was surprised, in the first place, to find that instead of asking five or six times the value of the fruit and abating his demand by degrees, as is commonly the custom, the merchant, who treated me with extreme deference, begged me to choose whatever fruit I pleased and pay him for it as much as I might consider it to be worth." "'What,' said I, 'do you leave the price to be fixed by me? Suppose I give you but half the value of it?' "'Sir,' answered the man, 'Allah forbid that your slave should venture to put aside the veil in which you choose at this moment to envelop yourself. Nevertheless, I am very sensible of the honour you have done me in entering my shop and conversing familiarly with me, and truly the shop and all it contains are altogether at your service.' "'For whom do you take me, or mistake me,' said I, 'that you treat me to so many compliments and good offers?' "'Sir,' he replied, 'I have seen his Majesty the Caliph, whom may Allah protect, ride by so often, both when he is going to and returning from the Mosque, that it would be very strange if I could fail to recognize his features, no matter what disguise he may choose to assume. However, I will say no more, a merchant and no more than a merchant you are if you will it so. To what place does it please you that I should send you the fruit?' "I denied again that I was the Commander of the Faithful, no matter how much my features might resemble his; but perceiving that the man retained his own opinion of my identity and received my disclaimers only out of politeness, I thought it not worth while to argue the question with him further, but desired him to send the fruit to me, Sidi ibn Thalabi, on board this boat. At the same time, I must confess that I so far yielded to the weakness of being flattered by being taken for the Caliph in disguise that I gave the fruit merchant two dinars for fruit which was not worth one quarter of that sum. "On receiving the money, which he did with much humbleness and many profound salutations, the merchant said--