“Nothing,—oh, nothing,” was the bland reply. Then, after a pause: “Perchance your Highness was thinking of the great Astrologer Kibosh, who rose from the sorry condition of a beggarly carter to the highest favor in his master’s eyes because of a secret which he once discovered. He went to his reward many years ago, as your Highness hath said; but his secret died not with him, and it is said to be even more wondrous than that possessed by the Wise Man who could change base metal into shining gold, inasmuch as the possessor of it hath no need to buy even the base metal, for”—here the speaker paused and looked significantly at the Pasha—“he findeth it right before him and ready to his hand.”
Badeg, the Soothsayer
Muley Mustapha, trying to dissemble and not succeeding very well, answered with assumed carelessness: “Truly, that must have been a remarkable man. I do not remember having heard of him before. What didst thou say he was when he led an honest life?”
“He was a poor carter,” replied the Soothsayer, “and, though he worked hard every day, and was very thrifty in his habits, yet he found himself growing poorer day by day and year by year. For he had a large family, consisting of seven sons and six daughters, whose respective ages were 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. It was no easy task to feed those thirteen jaws, or I should say pairs of jaws, without counting those of himself and his patient wife.
“Howbeit, it happened that Kibosh, on a certain Friday morning, awoke rejoicing that it was the day of rest, yet murmuring that, such being the fact, he knew there would be for him no work that day whereby to earn food for the morrow. He sat up in his couch, yawned, sighed, arose, and put on his garments. Then, after saying his morning prayers and making his scanty toilet, he sat down to a humble meal of black bread and dates. The bread was old and hard, and the dates were dry. Kibosh groaned as he chewed the uninviting food between his two-and-thirty teeth.”
“Had he two-and-thirty teeth?” interrupted the Pasha.
“Truly, he had no more,” replied the narrator. “It is the exact number possessed by all men of ripe years, unless, indeed, they have lost one or more.”
“Then,” said the Pasha, “what was there remarkable in his having that number?”
“Nothing,” was the answer, in a tone of scarcely veiled impertinence. “Only I am telling the story; and I am trying to tell it in the only proper style, which is the Realistic. Is it your Highness’s wish that I proceed?”