And he keeps my _kohl_-pencil by him as a pledge: oh, the shame that he has gotten by so doing: For my eye is dry through giving him this pledge; my hand fails to ransom its anointer. Now by this statement fathom the depth of my misery and pity one unused to bear it. Then turned the Kadi to the old man, and said, "Come, speak without glozing," and he said: I swear by the holy place of sacrifice, and the devout whom the slope of Mina brings together; If the time had been my helper, thou wouldst not have seen me taking in pledge the pencil which he has pledged to me. Nor would I bring myself to seek a substitute for a needle that he had spoiled; no, nor the price of it. But the bow of calamities shoots at me with deadly arrows from here and there: And to know my condition is to know his; misery, and distress, and exile, and sickness. Fortune has put us on a level: I am his like in misery, and he is as I. He can not ransom his pencil now that it lies pledged in my hand: And, through the narrowness of my own means, it is not within my bounds to forgive him for his offending. Now this is my tale and his: so look upon us, and judge between us, and pity us. Now when the Kadi had learned their stories, and was aware of their penury and their distinction, he took out for them a denar from under his prayer-cushion, and said, "With this end and decide your contention." But the old man caught it before the youth, and claimed the whole of it in earnest, not in jest, saying to the youth, "Half is mine as my share of the bounty, and thy share is mine, in payment for my needle: nor do I swerve from justice, so come and take thy pencil." Now there fell on the youth, at the words of the old man, a sadness at which the heart of the Kadi grew sullen, stirring its sorrow for the lost denar. Yet did he cheer the concern of the youth and his anguish by a few dirhems which he doled to him. Then he said to the two, "Avoid transactions, and put away disputes, and come not before me with wranglings, for I have no purse of fine-money for you." And they rose to go out from him, rejoicing at his gift, fluent in his praise. But as for the Kadi, his ill-humor subsided not after his stone had dripped; his sad look cleared not away after his rock had oozed. But when he recovered from his fit he turned to his attendants, and said, "My perception is imbued with the thought, and my guess announces to me, that these are practisers of craft, not suitors in a claim: but what is the way to fathom them, and to draw forth their secret?" Then said to him the Knowing One of his assemblage, the Light of his following: "Surely the discovery of what they hide must be through themselves." So he bade an attendant follow them and bring them back; and when they stood before him he said to them, "Tell me truly your camel's age: so shall ye be secure from the consequence of your deceit." Then did the