II.
One night Harun-ar-Rashid was quite sleepless, and said to his vizier, Jaafar, the son of Yahya, the Barmekide: 'I cannot sleep this night; I feel oppressed, and do not know what to do.' The servant Masrur, who happened to be standing near, burst out laughing at these words, and the Khalif continued: 'What are you laughing for? Do you mock me or wish to show your levity?' Masrur said: 'I swear by your relationship to the Prince of Apostles that I have done this unwittingly; but last evening I was near the castle, and walked to the bank of the Tigris, where I saw many persons assembled around a man who made them laugh, and just now I recollected some of his words, which caused me to smile; his name is Ben Almugázeli, and I crave pardon from the Commander of the Faithful.' Then Rashid said: 'Bring him here this moment.' Accordingly Masrur went to Ben Almugázeli and said to him: 'The Commander of the Faithful wants you.' He replied: 'To hear is to obey!' And Masrur continued: 'But on the condition that if he presents you with anything, one-fourth of it will belong to you, and the rest to me.' The man rejoined: 'No, I must have one-third of it and you the other two-thirds.' Masrur would not agree to this proposal, but at last consented after a great deal of haggling. When he was admitted and had made his salutations, the Khalif said: 'If you make me laugh I shall give you five hundred dinars, but if not I shall give you three blows with this sock.' Now Ben Almugázeli said to himself: "What is the odds if I get three strokes with the sock?" because he thought it was empty. Accordingly he began to jest and to play tricks at which low people might have laughed, but not Rashid, who did not even smile. The man was first astonished, then grieved, and at last frightened when Rashid said: "Now you have deserved the blows." He then took up the sock and twisted it, but at the bottom there were some balls, each of which weighed two drachms. When he had struck Ben Almugázeli once, the latter yelled pitifully, but recollecting the condition Masrur had imposed upon him, he exclaimed: "Mercy, O Commander of the Faithful, listen to two words of mine." He said: "Speak what you like." The man continued: "I have promised Masrur to let him have two-thirds of the bounty I might receive, and to keep one-third for myself, and to this he agreed only after much bargaining. Now the Commander of the Faithful has decided that the bounty shall consist of three blows, of which my share would be one, and Masrur's two. I have received mine, and now is his turn to take his." Rashid laughed, called for Masrur, and struck him; Masrur groaned from pain, and said: "I present him with the remainder." The Khalif laughed and ordered them to be presented with one thousand dinars, of which each received five hundred, and Ben Almugázeli went away grateful.'
In this work there are several other stories concerning various Khalifs, the Barmekide family, and other people, but the extracts given above are sufficient to show the nature of the volume.
Two short anecdotes are taken from the 'Sihr-ul-oyoon,' or 'Magic of the eyes,' a work known to Haji Khalfa, and noted by Fluegel in his lexicon. This book contains seven chapters, with some drawings of the eye, and an appendix consisting entirely of poetry, which, however, is also interspersed throughout the work, excepting in the chapters treating on the anatomy, the infirmities of, and the remedies for the eye.