“May it please your highness, you will never be able to listen to this man Ali,” observed Hussan: “you had better send him away.”
“Allah preserve your highness from all evil,” replied Ali, “but more especially from the talking of Hussan, which is as oppressive as the hot wind of the desert.”
“I have not sent for you to hear you dispute in my presence, but to hear your stories. Ali, do you begin.”
“I do assure your highness,” interrupted Hussan, “that you will not listen to him three minutes.”
“I do assure you,” retorted the pacha, “that if you say one word more, until you are ordered, you will be rewarded with the bastinado for your trouble. Ali, begin your story.”
“Well, your highness, it was about thirty years ago, you know, that I was a little boy, you know.”
Here Hussan lifted up his hands, and, smiled.
“Well your highness, you know—”
“I don’t know, Ali: how can I know until you tell me,” observed the pacha.
“Well then, your highness must know, that ever since I was born I have lived in the same street where your highness saw us seated last night, and thirty years, you know, is a long period in a man’s life. My father was a gardener, and people of his condition, you know, are obliged to get up early, that they may be in time for the market, where, you know, they bring their vegetables for sale.”