"Master Omar," said the cadi, "I am glad to see you; I have heard you spoken very well of this long time past. I am informed that you are a man of good character, that you regularly say your prayers five times a day, and that you never fail to attend the great mosque on Friday; besides, I know that you never eat pork, and never drink wine nor date-spirits; in fact, that whilst you are at work one of your apprentices reads the Koran."
"That is true," replied the dyer; "I know above four thousand hadits (sayings of Mahomet), and I am making preparations for a pilgrimage to Mecca."
"I assure you," replied the cadi, "that all this gives me the greatest pleasure, for I passionately love all good mussulmen. I am also informed that you keep concealed at home a daughter of an age to marry; is that true?"
"Great judge," answered Ousta Omar, "whose palace serves as a haven and refuge for the unfortunate who are tossed about by the storms of the world, they have told you true. I have a daughter who is old enough, in all conscience, to be married, for she is more than thirty years old; but the poor creature is not fit to be presented to a man, much less to so great a man as the cadi of Bagdad; she is ugly, or rather frightful, lame, covered with blotches, an idiot; in a word, she is a monster whom I cannot take too much pains to hide from the world."
"Indeed," said the cadi, "that is what I expected, master Omar. I was certain that you would thus praise your daughter; but know, my friend, that this blotchy, idiotic, lame, frightful person, in short, this monster, with all her defects, is loved to distraction by a man who desires her for his wife, and that man is myself."
At this speech the dyer seemed to doubt whether he were awake; he pinched himself, rubbed his eyes, and then looking the cadi full in the face, said,
"If my lord, the cadi, wishes to be merry, he is master; he may make a jest of my child as much as he pleases."
"No, no," replied the cadi, "I am not joking, I am in love with your daughter, and I ask her in marriage."
The artisan at these words burst into a fit of laughter. "By the prophet," cried he, "somebody wants to give you something to take care of. I give you fair warning, my lord, that my daughter has lost the use of her hands, is lame, dropsical."
"I know all about that," replied the judge, "I recognize her by her portrait. I have a peculiar liking for that sort of girls, they are my taste."