When the widow wept at the thought of her husband, the African magician turned to Aladdin and asked, "What business do you follow? Are you of any trade?"
The boy hung his head, and his mother added to his shame by saying, "Aladdin is an idle fellow. He would not learn his father's trade, and now will not heed me, but spends his time where you found him, in the streets. Unless you can persuade him to mend his ways, some day I must turn him out to shift for himself."
Again the widow wept, and the magician said,—
"This is not well, nephew. But there are many trades beside your father's. What say you to having a shop, which I will furnish for you with fine stuffs and linens? Tell me freely."
This seemed an easy life, and Aladdin, who hated work, jumped at the plan. "Well, then," said the magician, "come with me to-morrow, and, after clothing you handsomely, we will open the shop."
Soon after supper the stranger took his leave. On the next day he bought the boy his promised clothes, and entertained him with a company of merchants at his inn. When he brought Aladdin home to his mother at night, she called down many blessings on his head for all his kindness.
Early the next morning the magician came for Aladdin, saying they would spend that day in the country, and on the next would buy the shop. So away they walked through the gardens and palaces outside one of the gates of the city. Each palace seemed more beautiful than the last, and they had gone far before Aladdin thought the morning half gone. By the brink of a fountain they rested, and ate the cakes and fruit which the magician took from his girdle. At the same time he gave the boy good advice about the company he should keep. On they went again after their repast, still farther into the country, till they nearly reached the place, between two mountains, where the magician intended to do the work that had brought him from Africa to China.
"We will go no farther now," said he to Aladdin. "I will show you here some strange things. While I strike a light, gather me all the loose, dry sticks you can see, to kindle a fire with."
There was soon a great heap of them, and when they were in a blaze the magician threw in some incense, and spoke magical words which Aladdin did not understand.
This was scarcely done when the earth opened just before the magician, and they both saw a stone with a brass ring fixed in it. Aladdin was so frightened that he would have run away, but the magician seized him and gave him a box on the ear that knocked him down.