Sir, before I commence the recital of the story you have permitted me to relate, I beg leave to acquaint you that I have not the honour to be born in any part of your majesty’s empire. I am a stranger, born at Cairo, in Egypt, a Copt by nation, and by religion a Christian. My father was a broker, and got a good estate, which he left me at his death. I followed his example, and took up the same employment; and one day at Cairo, as I was standing in the public inn for the corn merchants, there came up to me a young handsome man, well dressed, and mounted upon an ass. He saluted me, and pulling out a handkerchief, in which he had a sample of sesame, or Turkey corn, asked me what a bushel of such sesame would fetch? I examined the corn that the young man showed me, and told him, it was worth a hundred drachms of silver per bushel. Pray, said he, look out for some merchant to take it at that price, and come to me at the Victory gate, where you will see a khan at a distance from the houses. So saying, he left me the sample, and I showed it to several merchants, who told me, that they would take as much as I could spare at a hundred and ten drachms per bushel, so that I made an account to get ten drachms per bushel for my share. Full of the expectation of this profit, I went to the Victory gate, where I found the young merchant expecting me, and he carried me into his granary, which was full of sesame. He had a hundred and fifty bushels of it, which I measured out, and having carried them off upon asses, sold them for five thousand drachms of silver. Out of this sum, said the young man, there is five hundred drachm; coming to you, at the rate of ten drachms per bushel. This I give to you, and as for the rest which is to come to me, do you take it out of the merchant’s hand, and keep it till I call or send for it, for I have no occasion for it at present. I made answer, it should be ready for him whenever he pleased to call for it; and so, kissing his hand, took leave of him with a grateful sense of his generosity. A month passed before he came near me; then he asked for his four thousand five hundred drachms of silver. I told him they were ready, and should be told down to him immediately. He was then mounted on his ass, and I desired him to alight, and do me the honour to eat a mouthful with me before he received his money. No, said he, I cannot alight at present; I have urgent business that obliges me to be at a place just by here; but I will return this way, and then take the money, which I desire you would have in readiness. This said, he disappeared, and I still expected his return, but it was a full month before he came again. I thought to myself, the young man has great confidence in me, leaving so great a sum in my hands without knowing me; any other man would have been afraid I should have run away with it. To be short, he came again at the end of the third month, and was still mounted on his ass, but finer dressed than before.