The boy, now free from restraint, became worse than ever. Until he was fifteen, he spent all his time with idle companions, never thinking how useless a man this would make of him. Playing thus with his evil mates one day, a stranger passing by stood to observe him.
The stranger was a person known as the African magician. Only two days before, he had arrived from Africa, his native country; and, seeing in Aladdin's face something that showed the boy to be well fitted for his purposes, he had taken pains to learn all that he could find out about him.
"Child," he said to Aladdin, calling him aside, "was not your father called Mustapha the tailor?"
"Yes, sir," answered the boy; "but he has been dead a long time."
Then the African magician embraced Aladdin and kissed him, saying with tears in his eyes, "I am your uncle. I knew you at first sight; you are so like my dear brother." Then he gave the boy a handful of money, and said, "Give my love to your mother, and tell her that I will visit her to-morrow, that I may see where my good brother lived and died."
"You have no uncle," said Aladdin's mother when she had heard his story. "Neither your father nor I ever had a brother."
Again the next day the magician found Aladdin playing in the streets, and embraced him as before, and put two pieces of gold into his hand, saying, "Carry this to your mother. Tell her I shall come to sup with you to-night; but show me first where you live."
This done, Aladdin ran home with the money, and all day his mother made ready to receive their guest. Just as they began to fear that he might not find the house, the African magician knocked at the door, and came in, bringing wine and fruits of every sort. After words of greeting to them both, he asked only to be placed where he might face the sofa on which Mustapha used to sit.
"My poor brother!" he exclaimed. "How unhappy am I, not to have come soon enough to give you one last embrace!"
Then he told Aladdin's mother how he had left their native land of China forty years ago, had traveled in many lands, and finally settled in Africa. The desire had seized him to see his brother and his home once more, and therefore he had come, alas! too late.