In the course of the banquet, he took the opportunity of explaining the state of his affairs, and begged some one of them to undertake the office of host, as they had been in the habit of doing. But his friends on this occasion received his announcement with great surprise.
"Is it thus with you?" said one, in astonishment.
"Are you obliged to have recourse to such means?" said another. "You have invited us here, and furnished your table most sumptuously; and are matters thus with you? If it be so, you are rightly served. Your profligate habits have led us into great expenses. 'T is good; you have given us a proof of what such things lead to."
"What!" said a third, "do you wish us to take up the office of host in order to come to the same end at which you have arrived?"
"I will give you some sound advice," said a fourth: "whenever you meet with a fool who is inclined to lay out his money in the purchase of such a poor tasteless garden as you have made, dispose of it to him, and with the proceeds take a little shop, and support yourself by trade."
"Look to yourself," said the fifth: "I am very sorry for you; but I cannot help you."
They then left him, some upbraiding him, others shrugging their Shoulders with pity.
"These are friends indeed!" said Jalaladdeen, bitterly, as they deserted him. "Oh, why did I neglect my father's injunctions? Even on the first day of our acquaintance, I should have taken warning by their carelessness in disregarding the Prophet's commandment concerning the abuse of wine. Ah me! I am justly punished."
He immediately began to retrench his household expenditure, and shortly his handsome tapestries and costly goods were all sold off, and he was reduced to the necessity of economizing most rigidly. But deeply as he felt the loss of those comforts which he had so lately enjoyed, his reflections bore still heavier upon him.
In his contemplations one day on his unhappy lot, he laid himself down in the same chamber in which he had received his dying father's commands. Here he experienced the most bitter anguish for the past—looked forward with sorrow and amazement to the future, as he had no one to advise and counsel him. Here his eye lighted upon the nail in the wall; and the last words of his father rung again in his ears—"Take this rope; you will see a nail in the wall; fasten it, and pull three times."