whereupon the Wazir stopped the bastinado and said, "Now speak thou sooth." Quoth the Eunuch, "Know then that we did enter the shop of a cook while he was dressing conserve of pomegranate-grains and he set some of it before us: by Allah! I never ate in my life its like, nor tasted aught nastier than this stuff which is now before us."[473] Badr al-Din Hasan's mother was angry at this and said, "Needs must thou go back to the cook and bring me a saucer of conserved pomegranate-grains from that which is in his shop and show it to thy master, that he may say which be the better and the nicer, mine or his." Said the unsexed "I will." So on the instant she gave him a saucer and a half dinar and he returned to the shop and said to the cook, "O Shaykh of all Cooks,[474] we have laid a wager concerning thy cookery in my lord's house, for they have conserve of pomegranate-grains there also; so give me this half-dinar's worth and look to it; for I have eaten a full meal of stick on account of thy cookery, and so do not let me eat aught more thereof." Hasan of Bassorah laughed and answered, "By Allah, none can dress this dish as it should be dressed save myself and my mother, and she at this time is in a far country." Then he ladled out a saucer-full; and, finishing it off with musk and rose-water, put it in a cloth which he sealed[475] and gave it to the Eunuch, who hastened back with it. No sooner had Badr al-Din Hasan's mother tasted it and perceived its fine flavour and the excellence of the cookery, than she knew who had dressed it, and she screamed and fell down fainting. The Wazir, sorely startled, sprinkled rose-water upon her and after a time she recovered and said, "If my son be yet of this world, none dressed this conserve of pomegranate-grains but he; and this Cook is my very son Badr al-Din Hasan; there is no doubt of it nor can there be any mistake, for only I and he knew how to prepare it and I taught him." When the Wazir heard her words he joyed with exceeding joy and said, "Oh the longing of me for a sight of my brother's son! I wonder if the days will ever unite us with him! Yet it is to Almighty Allah alone that we look for bringing about this meeting." Then he rose without stay or delay and, going to his suite said to them, "Be off, some fifty of you with sticks and staves to the Cook's shop and demolish it; then pinion his arms behind him with his own turband, saying:—It was thou madest that foul mess of pomegranate-grains! and drag him here perforce but without doing him a harm." And they replied, "It is well." Then the Wazir rode off without losing an instant to the Palace and, foregathering with the Viceroy of Damascus, showed him the Sultan's orders. After careful perusal he kissed the letter, and placing it upon his head said to his visitor, "Who is this offender of thine?" Quoth the Wazir, "A man which is a cook." So the Viceroy at once sent his