"I tell you," insisted the dyer, "she is not a fit match for you. Her name is Cayfacattaddhari (the monster of the age), and I must confess that her name is well chosen."
"Come, come!" replied the cadi, in an impatient and imperious tone, "this is enough, I am sick of all these objections. Master Omar, I ask you to give me this Cayfacattaddhari just as she is, so not another word."
The dyer, seeing him determined to espouse his daughter, and more than ever persuaded that some person had made him fall in love with her upon false representations for fun, said to himself, "I must ask him a heavy scherbeha (dowry): the amount may disgust him, and he will think no more of her."
"My lord," said he, "I am prepared to obey you; but I will not part with Cayfacattaddhari unless you give me a dowry of a thousand golden sequins beforehand."
"That is rather a large sum," said the cadi, "still I will pay it you." He immediately ordered a large bagful of sequins to be brought, a thousand were counted out, which the dyer took after weighing them, and the judge then ordered the marriage contract to be drawn out. When, moreover, it was ready for signature, the artisan protested that he would not sign it except in the presence of a hundred lawyers at least.
"You are very distrustful," said the cadi; "but never mind, I will satisfy your wishes, for I don't intend to let your daughter slip through my fingers." He thereupon sent immediately for all the neighbouring doctors, alfayins, mollahs, persons connected with the mosques and courts of law, of whom far more crowded in than the dyer required.
When all the witnesses had arrived at the cadi's, Ousta Omar spoke thus,
"My lord cadi, I give you my daughter in marriage, since you absolutely require me to do so; but I declare before all these gentlemen that it is on condition, that if you are not satisfied with her when you see her, and you wish afterwards to repudiate her, you will give her a thousand gold sequins, such as I have received from you."
"Well! so be it," replied the cadi, "I promise it before all this assembly. Art thou content?" The dyer replied in the affirmative, and departed, saying that he would send the bride.
He had scarcely left the house before the enamoured judge gave orders to have an apartment furnished in the most splendid manner to receive his new bride. Velvet carpets were laid down, new draperies hung up, and sofas of silver brocade placed round the walls, whilst several braziers perfumed the chamber with delicious scents. All was at length in readiness, and the cadi impatiently awaited the arrival of Cayfacattaddhari. The fair bride, however, not making her appearance so speedily as his eagerness expected, he called his faithful aga, and said, "The lovely object of my affections ought to be here by this time, I think. What can detain her so long at her father's? How slow the moments appear which retard my happiness!" At length his impatience could brook no longer delay, and he was on the point of sending the aga to Ousta Omar's, when a porter arrived carrying a deal case covered with green taffeta.