"Quick! Quick! Beadle, look at my back and see if it has gone!"
"See if what has gone?" asked the beadle, carefully looking behind the tree.
"Why, my hump, of course," answered Halid.
The beadle made a close inspection and declared that he could see no hump.
"A thousand thanks!" fervently exclaimed Halid, "then please undo the rope."
The beadle set about to liberate Halid, and at the same time earnestly begged to be told how he had got rid of the hump, so that he also might free himself of his deformity. Halid agreed to tell him the cure, provided the beadle had not yet broken fast, and also that he was prepared to pay a certain small sum of money for the secret. The beadle satisfied Halid on both of these points, and the latter immediately set about binding the hunchback to the tree, and further told him, on pain of breaking the spell, to repeat sixty-one times the words: 'Esserti! Pesserti! Sersepeti!' if he did this, the hump would of a certainty disappear. Halid left the poor beadle religiously and earnestly repeating the words.
The guards were furious when they found, bound to the tree, a madman, as they thought, repeating incoherent words, instead of Halid. They began to unbind the captive, but the only answer they could get to their host of questions was 'Esserti, Pesserti, Sersepeti.' As the knots were loosened, the louder did the beadle in despair call out the charmed words in the hopes of arresting them. No sooner was the beadle freed than he asked God to bring down calamity on the destroyers of the charm that was to remove his hunch. On hearing the beadle's tale, the guards understood how their prisoner had secured his liberty, and sent word to the Chief Detective. This gentleman told the Grand Vizier of the unheard-of cunning of the escaped prisoner. The Grand Vizier was amused and also very anxious to see this Chapkin Halid, so he sent criers all over the city, giving full pardon to Halid on condition that he would come to the Sublime Porte and confess in person to the Grand Vizier. Halid obeyed the summons, and came to kiss the hem of the Grand Vizier's garment, who was so favorably impressed by him that he then and there appointed him to be his Chief Detective.