"Not I," replied Abou Hassan, pettishly, without looking at the pretended Moussul merchant; "I do not greet you; I will have neither your greeting nor your embraces. Go along!"
"What!" answered the caliph, "do you not know me? Do you not remember the evening we spent together at your house this day month, where you did me the honour to treat me very generously?" "No," replied Abou Hassan in the same tone, "I do not know you, nor what you talk about; go, I say again, about your business."
The caliph was not to be diverted from his purpose by this rude behaviour. He well knew the law Abou Hassan had imposed on himself, never to have commerce again with a stranger he had once entertained; but pretended to be ignorant of it. "I cannot believe," said he, "but you must know me again; it is not possible that you should have forgotten me in so short a time. Certainly some misfortune has befallen you, which inspires you with this aversion for me. However, you ought to remember, that I shewed my gratitude by my good wishes, and that I offered you my interest, which is not to be slighted, in an affair which you had much at heart."
"I do not know," replied Abou Hassan, "what your interest may be, and I have no desire to make use of it: but I am sensible the utmost of your good wishes ended in making me mad. In God's name, I say once more, go your way, and trouble me no more."
"Ah! brother Abou Hassan," replied the caliph, embracing him, "I do not intend to part with you thus, since I have had the good fortune to meet with you a second time; you must exercise the same hospitality towards me again that you shewed me a month ago, when I had the honour to drink with you."
"I have protested against this," said Abou Hassan, "and have so much power over myself, as to decline receiving a second time as my guest, a man like you who carries misfortunes with him. You know the proverb, ‘Take up your drum and begone.' Make the application to yourself. How often must I repeat my refusal. God be with you! You have been the cause of my sufferings, and I will not trust myself with you again." "My good friend Abou Hassan," said the caliph, embracing him, "you treat me in a way I little expected. I beg of you not to speak to me thus harshly, but be persuaded of my friendship. Do me the favour to tell me what has happened to you; for I assure you I wished you well, and still do so; and would be glad of an opportunity to make you any amends for the trouble I have caused you, if it has been really my fault." Abou Hassan yielded to the solicitations of the caliph. "Your incredulity and importunity," said he, "have tired my patience; and what I am going to relate will shew you that I do not accuse you wrongfully."
The caliph seated himself by Abou Hassan, while he told him all that had happened to him, from his waking in the palace to his waking again in his own house, all which he described as a mere dream, and recounted all the circumstances, which the caliph knew as well as himself, and which renewed his pleasure. He enlarged afterwards on the impression which the dream of being caliph and commander of the faithful had made upon him, which, he said, threw him into such extravagancies, that his neighbours were obliged to carry him to a mad-house, where he was treated in a manner which he deemed most barbarous and inhuman. "But," said he, "what will surprise you, and what you little think of, is, that it was altogether your fault that these things happened to me; for, if you remember, I desired you to shut the door after you, which you neglected, and the devil, finding it open, entered and put this dream into my head, which, though it was very agreeable, was the cause of the misfortune I complain of: you therefore, for your negligence, are answerable for the horrid and detestable crime I have committed in lifting my hand against my mother, whom I might have killed (I blush for shame when I think of it), because she said I was her son, and would not acknowledge me for commander of the faithful, as I thought and positively insisted on to her that I was. You are the cause of the offence I have given my neighbours, when, running in at the cries of my poor mother, they surprised me in the horrid act of felling her at my feet; which would never have happened, if you had taken care to shut my door when you went away, as I desired you. They would not have come into my house without my leave; and, what troubles me most of all, they would not have been witnesses of my folly. I should not have been obliged to strike them in my own defence, and they would not have bound and fettered me, to carry and shut me up in the hospital for madmen, where I assure you every day that I remained confined in that hell, I received a score of strokes with a bastinado." Abou Hassan recounted his complaints with great warmth and vehemence to the caliph, who knew as well as himself what had passed, and was delighted to find that he had succeeded so well in his plan to throw him into the vagaries from which he still was not entirely free. He could not help laughing at the simplicity wherewith he related them.
Abou Hassan, who thought that his story should rather have moved compassion, and that every one ought to be as much concerned at it as himself, warmly resented the pretended Moussul merchant's laughter. "What!" said he, "do you make a jest of me and laugh in my face, or do you believe I laugh at you when I speak seriously? If you want proof of what I advance, look yourself and see whether or no I tell you the truth ;" with that, stooping down and baring his shoulders, he shewed the caliph the scars and weals which the bastinado had left.
The caliph could not behold these marks of cruelty without horror. He pitied Abou Hassan, and felt sorry he had carried the jest so far. "Come, rise, dear brother," said he to him eagerly, and embracing Abou Hassan heartily in his arms; "let me go to your house, and enjoy the happiness of being merry with you to- night; and to-morrow, if it please God, all things will go well."
Abou Hassan, notwithstanding his resolution never to admit the same stranger a second time, could not resist the caresses of the caliph, whom he still took for a merchant of Moussul. "I will consent," said he, "if you will swear to shut my door after you, that the devil may not come in to distract my brain again." The caliph promised that he would; upon which they both arose, walked towards the city, and, followed by the caliph's slave, reached Abou Hassan's house by the time it was dark.