"'I then proceeded to my master. As soon as he saw me he demanded his two dirhems, and I related my adventure to him. "Scoundrel!" he said. "Have I not warned you that I will take no excuse, even if a farthing is missing?" Saying this, he laid me on the ground and, with the utmost vigor of his arm, gave me fifty strokes of a rod, and, as an additional disgrace, caused my head and chin to be shaved. Verily, O Prince, I passed a melancholy night. The severe punishment I had undergone made me forget the piece I had learned, and this was the saddest of all. In the morning, wrapping my head in a cloak, I hid my large tailor's scissors in my sleeve, and directed my steps to the spot where I had met the negress. I waited there in perplexity, not knowing her name nor her abode. All at once I saw her coming; the sight of her dispersed all my cares. I approached her, and she said to me: "By the Lord of the Kaaba, you have forgotten the song!" "Yes, I have," I answered. I told her how my head and chin had been shaved, and offered her a reward if she would sing her song again. "By the Prophet," she answered, "I will not for less than two dirhems." "'I took out my scissors and ran and pawned them for two dirhems, which I gave her. She put down her pitcher, and began to sing as she had done the evening before; but as soon as she began, I said: "Give me back the two dirhems; I don't need your song." "By Allah," she said, "you shall not see them again; don't think it." Then she added: "I am certain that the four dirhems you have spent will be worth to you four thousand dinars from the hand of the Caliph." Then she resumed her song, accompanying herself, as before, on her pitcher, and did not cease repeating it till I had got it by heart. "'We separated. I returned to my master, but in a state of great apprehension. When he saw me he demanded his daily due, while I stammered out excuses. "Beast!" he shouted, "was not yesterday's lesson enough for you?" "I wish to speak to you frankly and without falsehood," I answered. "Yesterday's and to-day's dirhems went in payment for a song"; and I began to sing it to him. "What!" he exclaimed, "you have known an air like that for two days and told me nothing of it? May my wife be divorced if it is not true that I would have let you go yesterday if you had sung it to me! Your head and chin have been shaved—I can not help that—but I let you off your tax till your hair grows again."' "Hearing this recital, Rashid laughed heartily, and said to the musician: 'I don't know which is better, your song or your story; I will see in my turn that the forecast of the negress is verified.' So Meskin went out from the Caliph's presence richer by four thousand dinars." _The Barmecides, Viziers of Haroun al Rashid_