STORY OF THE EGYPTIAN PRINCE “In the city of Cairo there was a king and he had two sons. One day he reflected on the doings of the cruel sphere and saw how the world was without constancy and remained not to king nor yet to beggar, but trod all under foot. At length he bethought him how it would not endure for himself either; and he took his younger son and made him apprentice to a master tailor, and said, ‘After all, a trade is needful for a man; and they have said that the least knowledge of a trade is better than a hundred thousand sequins.’ So in a short while the prince became a tailor such that there was not in the city of Cairo one who could ply his scissors and needle. One day the king passed to the abiding home, and his elder son became king. His brother the tailor, fearing for his head, fled and went to the Ka’ba.[31] “While making the circumambulation,[32] his foot struck against something hard, he looked and saw a girdle and took it up and bound it round his loins, and continued the circumambulation. After a while he saw a khoja who had a stone in either hand and who was beating his breast with these stones and crying, ‘Ah woe! alas! I had hidden in that girdle all the wealth I have gained from my youth; whatever Moslem has found it, let him give it me for the love of God and the honor of the Ka’ba, and the half of it shall be lawful for him as his mother’s milk.’ “When the prince saw and heard him he knew that that girdle was his, and he said in his heart, ‘What has this much wealth and the kingdom of my father done for me? and what should this do for me? I shall not let this poor man weep; I shall give it him.’ And he went round and came before the khoja and said, ‘O khoja, I have found that girdle of thine; lo, it is round my loins.’ The khoja clung fast to the prince, and the prince said, ‘What reward wilt thou give me? lo, the girdle is round my loins.’ Then the khoja took the prince and brought him to his own tent; and the prince loosed the girdle from his loins and laid it before the khoja, and the khoja took it and clasped it to his heart. Then he brake the seal and poured out what was in it; and the prince saw it to be full of precious stones.