Then each one approved the couplet and admired it, and bade him repeat it and dictate it. And he was asked, "Whose is this verse, and is its author living or dead?" He said, "By Allah, right is most worthy to be followed, and truth is most fitting to be listened to: Know, friends, that it is his who talks with you to-day." Said Al Harith: Now it was as though the company doubted of his fathering, and were unwilling to give credit to his claim. And he perceived what had fallen into their thoughts, and was aware of their inward unbelief; and was afraid that blame might chance to him, or ill-fame reach him; so he quoted from the Koran, "Some suspicions are a sin." Then he said, "O ye reciters of verse, physicians of sickly phrase!—Truly the purity of the gem is shown by the testing, and the hand of truth rends the cloak of doubt.—Now it was said aforetime that by trial is a man honored or contemned. So come! I now expose my hidden store to the proving, I offer my saddle-bag for comparison." Then hastened one who was there and said: "I know a verse such that there is no weaving on its beam, such that no genius can supply one after its image. Now, if thou wish to draw our hearts to thee, compose after this style: She rained pearls from the daffodil, and watered the rose, and bit upon the _'unnab_ with hail-stone. And it was but the glance of an eye, or less, before he recited rarely: I asked her when she met me to put off her crimson veil, and to endow my hearing with the sweetest of tidings: And she removed the ruddy light which covered the brightness of her moon, and she dropped pearls from a perfumed ring. Then all present were astonished at his readiness, and acknowledged his honesty. And when he perceived that they approved his diction, and were hastening into the path of honoring him, he looked down the twinkling of an eye; then he said, "Here are two other verses for you"; and recited: She came on the day when departure afflicted, in black robes, biting her fingers like one regretful, confounded: And night lowered on her morn, and a branch supported them both, and she bit into crystal with pearls. Then did the company set high his value, and deem that his steady rain was a plenteous one; and they made pleasant their converse with him, and gave him goodly clothing. Said the teller of this story: Now when I saw the blazing of his firebrand, and the gleam of his unveiled brightness, I fixed a long look to guess at him, and made my eye to stray over his countenance. And lo! he was our Shaykh of Seruj; but now his dark night was moon-lit. Then I congratulated myself on his coming thither, and hastened to kiss his hand: and said to him, "What has changed thy appearance, so that I could not recognize thee? what has made thy beard gray, so that I knew not thy countenance?" And he indited and said: The stroke of calamities makes us hoary, and fortune to men is a changer. If it yields to-day to any, to-morrow it overcomes him.