“Ask what thou wilt,” said the Genie, “for I must ever obey whomsoever hast the ring that thou wearest upon thy finger. Hath my lord nothing to command wherein I may serve him?”
Abdallah shook his head. “No,” said he, “there is nothing—unless—unless you will bring me something to eat.”
“To hear is to obey,” said the Genie. “What will my lord be pleased to have?”
“Just a little bread and cheese,” said Abdallah.
The Genie waved his hand, and in an instant a fine damask napkin lay spread upon the ground, and upon it a loaf of bread as white as snow and a piece of cheese such as the king would have been glad to taste. But Abdallah could do nothing but sit staring at the Genie, for the sight of the monster quite took away his appetite.
“What more can I do to serve thee?” asked the Genie.
“I think,” said Abdallah, “that I could eat more comfortably if you were away.”
“To hear is to obey,” said the Genie. “Whither shall I go? Shall I enter the casket again?”
“I do not know,” said the fagot-maker; “how did you come to be there?”
“I am a great Genie,” answered the monster, “and was conjured thither by the great King Solomon, whose seal it is that thou wearest upon thy finger. For a certain fault that I committed I was confined in the box and hidden in the cavern where thou didst find me to-day. There I lay for thousands of years until one day three old magicians discovered the secret of where I lay hidden. It was they who only this morning compelled me to give them that vast treasure which thou sawest them take away from the cavern not long since.”