The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, Volume 2 (of 3)Le Sage, Alain René
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The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, Volume 2 (of 3)
Le Sage, Alain René
Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction; Blas, Gil (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
This action was, however, very near laying me by the heels. On the
following day there came a fellow to my house, saying, Master Sidy
Hali, it is no laughing matter that induces me to pay you this visit.
My employer, the cadi, wants to have a word in your ear; be so good,
if you please, as just to step to his office, without loss of time.
An Arabian merchant, who supped with you last night, has laid an
information respecting a certain act of irreverence perpetrated by
you, on occasion of a dog which you buried. It is on that charge
that I summon you to appear this day before the judge; and, in case
of failure, you are hereby warned that you will be the subject of a
criminal prosecution. Away went he, leaving me to digest his
discourse; but the citation stuck in my throat, and took away my
appetite. The Arabian had no reason whatever to set his face against
me; and I could not comprehend the meaning of the dog's trick the
scoundrel had played me. The circumstance, at all events, demanded
my prompt attention. I knew the cadi's character--a saint on the
outside, but a sinner in his heart. Away went I therefore to wait on
this judge, but not with empty pockets. He sent for me into his
private room, and began upon me in all the vehemence of pious
indignation: You are a fellow rejected out of paradise! a blasphemer
of our holy law! a man loathsome and abominable to look upon! You
have performed the funeral service of a Mussulman over a dog. What
an act of sacrilege! Is it thus, then, that you reverence our most
holy ceremonies? Have you only turned Mahometan to laugh at our
devotions and our rites? My honored master, answered I, the Arabian
who has told you such a cock and bull story is a wolf in sheep's
clothing; and, more than that, he is even an accomplice in my crime,
if it is one, to grant such rest as to peace-parted souls to a
faithful household servant, to an animal with more good qualities
than half the two-legged Mahometans out of Christendom. His
attachment, besides, to people of merit and consideration in the
world was at once moral and sensible; and at his death he left
several little tokens of remembrance to his friends. By his last
will and testament, he bequeathed his effects in the manner therein
mentioned, and did me the honor to name me for his executor. This
old crony came in for twenty crowns, that for thirty, and another for
a cool hundred; but your worship is interested deeply in this
instrument, pursued I, drawing out my purse; he has left you
residuary legatee, and here is the amount of the bequest. The cadi's
gravity could not but relax, after the posthumous kindness of his
deceased friend; and he laughed outright in the face of the mock
executor. As we were alone, there was no occasion to make wry mouths
at the purse, and my acquittal was pronounced in these words: Go,
Master Sidy Hali; it was a very pious act of yours, to enlarge the
obsequies of a dog, who had so manly a fellow-feeling for honest
folks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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