It so happened that one of his neighbours was looking out of window at the time, and seeing Casem poking about the earth in his garden, he ran to the Cadi, and told him that his old friend had discovered a treasure. Nothing more was requisite to excite the cupidity of the Judge. He allowed the miser to aver, as loudly as he pleased, that he was burying his slippers, and had found no treasure, but at the same time demanded the treasure he had found. Casem talked to no purpose. Wearied out at last with his own asseverations, he paid the money, and departed, cursing the very souls of the pantofles.
Determined to get rid of these unhappy moveables, our hero walked to some distance from the city, and threw them into a reservoir, hoping he had now fairly seen the last of them; but the evil genii, not yet tired of tormenting him, guided the pantofles precisely to the mouth of the conduit. From this point they were carried along into the city, and, sticking at the mouth of the aqueduct, they stopped it up, and prevented the water from flowing into the basin. The overseers of the city fountains, seeing that the water had stopped, immediately set about repairing the damage, and at length dragged into the face of day the old reprobate slippers, which they immediately took to the Cadi, complaining loudly of the damage they had caused.
The unfortunate proprietor was now condemned to pay a fine still heavier than before; but far was he from having the luck of seeing his chattels detained. The Cadi, having delivered the sentence, said, like a conscientious magistrate, that he had no power of retaining other peoples' property, upon which the slippers, with much solemnity, were faithfully returned to their distracted master. He carried them home with him, meditating as he went—and as well as he was able to meditate—how he should destroy them; at length he determined upon committing them to the flames. He accordingly tried to do so, but they were too wet; so he put them on a terrace to dry. But the evil genii, as aforesaid, had reserved a still more cruel accident than any before; for a dog, whose master lived hard by, seeing these strange wild fowl of a pair of shoes, jumped from one terrace to the other, till he came to the miser's, and began to play with one of them: in his sport he dropped it over the balustrade, and it fell, heavy with hobnails and the accumulated dirt of years, on the tender head of an infant, and killed him on the spot. The parents went straight to the Cadi, and complained that they had found their child dead, and Casem's pantofle lying by it, upon which the Judge condemned him to pay a very heavy fine.
Casem returned home, and taking the pantofles, went back to the Cadi, crying out with an enthusiasm that convulsed everybody, "Behold! behold! See here the fatal cause of all the sufferings of Casem! these pantofles, which have at length brought ruin upon his head. My Lord Cadi, be so merciful, I pray you, as to give an edict that may free me from all imputation of accident which these slippers henceforth may occasion, as they certainly will to anybody who ventures into their accursed leather!"
The Cadi could not refuse this request, and the miser learned to his cost the ill effects of not buying a new pair of shoes.
