I said, "What shall I do with an empty house, and a host the ally of penury? But tell me, youth, what is thy name, for thy understanding has charmed me." He said, "My name is Zayd, and my birth-place Fayd: and I came to this city yesterday with my mother's kindred of the Benu 'Abs." I said to him, "Show me further, so mayest thou live and be raised when thou fallest!" He said, "My mother Barrah told me (and she is like her name, 'pious') that she married in the year of the foray on Mawan a man of the nobles of Seruj and Ghassan; but when he was aware of her pregnancy (for he was a crafty bird, it is said) he made off from her by stealth, and away he has stayed, nor is it known whether he is alive and to be looked for, or whether he has been laid in the lonely tomb." Said Abu Zayd, "Now I knew by sure signs that he was my child; but the emptiness of my hand turned me from making known to him, so I parted from him with heart crushed and tears unsealed. And now, ye men of understanding, have ye heard aught more wondrous than this wonder?" We said, "No, by him who has knowledge of the Book." He said, "Record it among the wonders of chance; bid it abide forever in the hearts of scrolls; for nothing like it has been told abroad in the world." Then he bade bring the ink-flask, and its snake-like reeds, and we wrote the story elegantly as he worded it; after which we sought to draw from him his wish about receiving his boy. He said, "If my purse were heavy, then to take charge of my son would be light." We said, "If a _nisab_ of money would suffice thee, we will collect it for thee at once." He said, "And how should a _nisab_ not content me? would any but a madman despise such a sum?" Said the narrator, Then each of us undertook a share of it, and wrote for him an order for it. Whereupon he gave thanks for the kindness, and exhausted the plenteousness of praise; until we thought his speech long, or our merit little. And then he spread out such a bright mantle of talk as might shame the stuffs of Yemen, until the dawn appeared and the light-bearing morn went forth. So we spent a night of which the mixed hues had departed, until its hind-locks grew gray in the dawn; and whose lucky stars were sovereign until its branch budded into light. But when the limb of the sun peeped forth, he leaped up as leaps the gazelle, and said, "Rise up, that we may take hold on the gifts and draw payment of the checks: for the clefts of my heart are widening through yearning after my child." So I went with him, hand in hand, to make easy his success. But as soon as he had secured the coin in his purse the marks of his joy flashed forth, and he said, "Be thou rewarded for the steps of thy feet! be God my substitute toward thee!" I said, "I wish to follow thee that I may behold thy noble child, and speak with him that he may answer eloquently." Then looked he at me as looks the deceiver on the deceived, and laughed till his eyeballs gushed with tears; and he recited: