That excellent old man began as follows:
“I warn you, my children, that the path to wealth, which (by the Mercy of Allah) I have been allowed to tread, is varied and difficult. Profit by my misadventures! Remain determined to enrich yourselves, even after the worst mishaps! Yea! After wealth and poverty (like mine) renewed wealth and (alas!) renewed poverty never despair. Still hold to gold and still determine your fate. Still thirst for money. But all the while most reverently worship Him the Supreme, the All-compelling, the Giver of Great bags of coin. No talent in the deception of individuals or the gulling of the crowd can of itself bring the great reward. The acquirement of those immense sums which are the chief glory of man, is, like all else, in the Hand of God.
“My brother, your worthy though impecunious father, has sufficiently grounded you in the essentials of our holy religion. You will not repine if you turn out to be one of the ninety-nine who end their lives in the gutter, rather than the blessed hundredth who attains, as I have attained, to the possession of a palace and of innumerable slaves....”
Having so spoken the aged merchant bent for a moment in silent prayer and then proceeded:
“You will remember that at the conclusion of my last adventure I had reached a position, not of affluence, but at least of tolerable fortune. I was possessed of a train of camels, each heavily laden with two large panniers of dates, and drivers to conduct the whole.
“You will further remember how, on my arrival in Laknes, as I was anxious to make the best of my time I spoke freely to all of my merchandise, extolled its character, described how I intended to put it up for sale next day in the public markets, and spread abroad the name of Ishmaïl-of-Taftah which happened for the moment to be mine.
“The rumour spread (as I had intended it should). I strolled through the narrow streets of the town after sunset, and was glad to hear my arrival discussed, and my wares. I had promise for the morrow. I returned to my men.
“I had already spread out my bed upon the corner of the yard, when there came up a slave magnificently dressed, who bowed to the ground, and approaching my presence asked whether he had the honour and felicity to address the renowned merchant Ishmaïl. He bore an invitation from the greatest merchant in the city, whose name I had already heard half a dozen times in Taftah, and whom all the merchants there revered from afar for his enormous riches: a certain Yusouff ben Ahmed, also called ‘El-Zafari,’ or the Triumphant.
“Late as was the hour I purchased finery; with my last gold I hired a donkey of strange magnificence, and arrived at the palace of Yusouff, dressed in a fashion which I could ill afford, but which I regarded as an investment.
“I had expected to find within this palace that admirable simplicity of manner which is inseparable from really great wealth: Nor was I disappointed. The inner room to which I was led, encrusted everywhere with black marble, boasted no ornament save three white alabaster jars as tall as a man and of immense antiquity. They had formerly been the property of a young noble whom Yusouff had ruined, and he had them of the Sultan. In the midst shone the single pure flame of a massive silver lamp, rifled from the tomb of a saint. It now hung dependent from a chain of the same metal, the height of which was lost in the gloom of the lofty cupola.