"'It is well said,' replied Mustapha.
"Very soon he was left alone in the great kitchen of the Palace, while all the strange things he had seen at the feasts of the Genii came back to his mind.
"Presently he sought about him among the stores of provisions, and took from a basket those striped apples which grow by the brooks of Alkeldrina.
"These he pared deftly and set each within a cup of wheaten dough, such as only the Caliph's farms can furnish. Therein he placed also the golden orange-peel and the spices of distant Borneo. Lastly, he sprinkled it within and without with the aromatic sugar of Turkan, and hanging each apple thus prepared in a silken net carefully cooked them.
"When they were ready he placed them upon golden dishes, and threw over each a hail of snowy sugar and fragrant cinnamon, covering all with a handful of almond blossoms.
"Then he called the guard, and with scimetars crossed over his head he was allowed to carry his dish to the Princess. As she looked languidly upon it he shook off the blossoms.
"'Then,' said the Princess, 'These be the roses of Paradise which I do smell.'
"At these words he knelt down and offered the dish to the lady. Wonderful to tell the Princess called for a silver fork and ate up the whole of the apples so greedily that she scalded her throat in the most dreadful way.
"But between every mouthful she blessed poor Mustapha as the king of cooks, and from that instant she recovered so quickly as to disgust all the doctors, who said Mustapha was a quack, and went away.