Having returned our thanks to God for thus again uniting us, we resolved for the future to live free, and never again to separate. We have for a long time continued to pass this tranquil kind of life, and as I have the whole management of the house, I take a pleasure in sometimes going out myself to purchase the provisions we may have occasion for. I went out yesterday for this purpose, and ordered them to be brought home by a porter, who proved to be possessed of some wit and humour, and we detained him in order to divert us. The three calenders arrived about the beginning of the evening, and requested us to afford them an asylum till the morning. We received them upon one express condition, which they agreed to; and after placing them at our own table, they amused us with some music in a manner peculiar to themselves. At this particular time we heard a knock at our gate; and we saw there were three merchants of Moussoul, of a good handsome appearance, who requested the same favour of us which the calenders had before done; and we granted it them on the same condition, but not one of them observed their promise. Although we had the power to punish them, and with the greatest justice, we were satisfied with only requiring the recital of each of their histories; and we confined our revenge to the act of immediately dismissing them, and thus depriving them of the retreat they had requested. The caliph Haroun Alraschid was very well satisfied with the account he thus received, and for which he was so anxious. And he publicly expressed the pleasure and astonishment which these narratives had afforded him. When the caliph had thus satisfied his curiosity, he wished to give some proofs of his generosity and magnificence to the calenders who were princes; and also to make the three ladies feel the consequences of his bounty. Without therefore employing the intervention of his grand vizier, he himself said to Zobeidè, “Has not that fairy, madam, whom you first beheld under the form of a serpent, and who has imposed so rigorous a law upon you, given you any information were she lives; or rather, has she not promised to see you again, and suffer the two dogs to re-assume their natural form?” “I ought not to have forgotten, Commander of the Faithful,” replied Zobeidè, “to have informed you, that the fairy put a small packet of hair into my hand; saying, at the same time, that I should one day have occasion for her presence; and then, if I only burnt two single hairs she would instantly be with me, although she should happen to be beyond Mount Caucasus.”--“Where, madam,” replied the caliph, “is this packet of hair?” She replied, that she had from that time always carried it about with her very carefully. She then took it out of her pocket, and opening the lid of the box in which she kept it, she showed it to him. “Let us then,” cried the caliph, “make the fairy appear now; you cannot, since I wish it, call her more opportunely.”