'Not so fast,' returned Abu Hasan coldly. 'I care not for thee nor thy embraces. Be off about thy business, accurséd of God!'
'What hast thou then suffered at my hands?' asked the caliph. 'Is it that I forgot your oath through pleasure at seeing you once more? I am deeply sorry.'
'Nay, nay; it is not that, O master of fiends! Thou didst enchant me and hand me over to fiends, and now thou comest to make sport of my sufferings. Begone! I like thee not.'
'Brother!' replied the caliph with extreme courtesy, 'thou art surely in error. Yet perchance it was my fault, for now I do remember that when I left you that night I neglected to close the door, and methinks the evil one entered to thee after I had gone.' And, by cunning arguments and the most courteous protestations of affection, the caliph succeeded in convincing Hasan that he had no hand in such devilries, and in the end Hasan realised that he had done the stranger so great an injustice that he set aside his oath for once and invited him again to his house.
And as it fell out before, so it befell again. A second time the caliph employed the benj, and a second time Hasan awoke in the morning to find himself upon the royal couch surrounded by the attendants of the Court. His first call was for his mother, but a slave-girl struck a lute near by and answered, 'O Prince of the Faithful! we are here to do thy bidding.'
Abu Hasan looked about him completely dazed. If he was one day Abu Hasan and another day the caliph, who was he when he was at home? The problem was insoluble. He tried to solve it by commanding the chief memluk to bite his ear to see if he was really awake. Then, as the memluk's teeth met through the flesh of the lobe, Abu Hasan shrieked aloud, and the caliph, hidden in a recess near by, fell to his knees with suppressed laughter.
'Verily, I am awake,' cried Abu Hasan, rising in fury, 'but this is the work of the evil one. O Abandoned of God! Back to your infernal abodes! I will have none of you.' And he hurled at them the most holy passages of the Koran ordained for the casting out of devils. At this the caliph, unable to endure it further, came forth, laughing as he had never laughed before. He cried, holding his sides, 'Stop! for Allah's sake, stop! or it will be the death of me!'
Then Abu Hasan stood aghast. He recognised the merchant of Moussul, and also, for the first time, he recognised Harun-er-Rashid, the caliph of Baghdad, the mighty descendant of the House of Abbas. He saw it all now, and humbly made obeisance, praying that the Lord of all Creatures might live for ever.
'Rise, Abu Hasan the Wag!' said the caliph, 'and the peace of Allah be with thee.'
Abu Hasan the Wag! What a history was his! He rose in favour with the caliph, who ceased not to shower gifts upon him. And a time came when the caliph and the Queen Zobeide conspired together to marry him to one of the loveliest women of the Court. These two thereafter lived in the palace, under the caliph's smile, in perfect happiness, tasting every delight until, in the end, when the last cup of joy was quaffed, the Great Gleaner, who gleans alike in palaces and in the humblest dwellings, came to gather them home.