The caliph, Haroun Alraschid, notwithstanding his gravity, could not avoid laughing, when the vizier Giafar said, that Schemseddin Mohammed threatened Bedreddin Hassan with death, for not having put pepper in the cheesecake he had sold to Schaban. “What!” said Bedreddin, “was every thing in my house to be broken and destroyed, myself imprisoned in a box, and at last a stake prepared for my execution; was all this done only because I did not put pepper in a cheesecake? Great God, who ever heard of such a thing? Are these actions worthy of mussulmen, of persons who profess to practice justice, probity, and all kinds of good works?” Saying this he burst into tears, then beginning again his lamentations, “No,” continued he, “no one was ever treated so unjustly and so rigorously. Is it possible that they should deprive a man of life, for not having put pepper in a cheesecake? Cursed be all cheesecakes, as well as the hour in which I was born! would to God I had died at that instant!” The unhappy Bedreddin did not cease his complaints, and when the stake was brought, and the nails to fasten him to it, he uttered dreadful cries at so horrid a spectacle: “Oh God!” said he, “canst thou permit me to suffer a death so infamous and excruciating? And for what crime too? It is not for having stolen, nor for having committed murder, neither for having denied my religion; it is for not having put pepper in a cheesecake!” As the night was now far advanced, the vizier, Schemseddin Mohammed, ordered Bedreddin to be put again into his case, and said to him, “Remain there till to-morrow; the day shall not pass before I order thee to be put to death.” The case was taken away, and placed on the camel that had brought it from Damascus; all the other camels were reladen, and the vizier, mounting his horse, ordered that the camel, which carried his nephew, should go before him, and entered the city, followed by all his equipage. After passing through several streets, where no one appeared, as the inhabitants had retired to rest, he arrived at his house, where the case was conveyed with strict charge not to open it till he should think proper. Whilst they were unlading the other camels, he took aside the mother of Bedreddin Hassan and his daughter, and addressing the latter, “God be praised,” said he, “my dear daughter, that we have so happily met with your cousin and husband. I dare say you recollect the state in which your chamber was on the night of your nuptials. Go, and have every thing placed as it was then. If by chance you do not remember it, I can supply the defect in your memory, by the description I wrote at the time. On my part, I will go and give orders for the rest.”