The person to whom the African magician addressed himself took a pleasure in shewing him the way to Aladdin’s palace, and he got up, and went thither instantly. When he came to the palace, and had examined it on all sides, he doubted not but that Aladdin had made use of the lamp to build it. Without attending to the inability of Aladdin, a poor tailor’s son, he knew that none but the genies, the slaves of the lamp, the attaining of which he had missed, could have performed such wonders; and, piqued to the quick at Aladdin’s happiness and greatness, he returned to the khan where he lodged.
The next thing was to know where the lamp was; if Aladdin carried it about with him, or where he kept it; and this he was to discover by an operation of geomancy. As soon as he entered his lodging, he took his square box of sand, which he always carried along with him when he travelled, and after he had performed some operations, he knew that the lamp was in Aladdin’s palace; and so great was his joy at the discovery, that he could hardly contain himself. “Well,” said he, “I shall have the lamp, and I defy Aladdin’s preventing my carrying it off, and making him sink to his original meanness, from which he has taken so high a flight.”
It was Aladdin’s misfortune at that time to be gone a-hunting for eight days, of which only three were expired, which the magician came to know by this means. After he had performed this operation, which gave him so much joy, he went to the master of the khan, entered into discourse with him on indifferent matters, and, among the rest, told him he had been to see Aladdin’s palace; and, after exaggerating on all that he had seen most surprising and most striking to him and all the world, he added, “But my curiosity leads me farther, and I shall not be easy till I have seen the person to whom this wonderful edifice belongs.” “That will be no difficult matter,” replied the master of the khan; “there is not a day passes but he gives an opportunity when he is in town, but at present he is not at home, and has been gone these three days on a hunting-match, which will last eight.”
The magician wanted to know no more: he took his leave of the master of the khan, and returning to his own chamber, said to himself, “This is an opportunity I ought by no means to let slip, but will make the best use of it.” To that end he went to a maker and seller of lamps, and asked for a dozen of copper lamps. The master of the shop told him he had not so many by him, but if he would have patience till the next day, he would get him so many against any time he had a mind to have them. The magician appointed his time, and bid him take care that they should be handsome and well polished. After promising to pay him well, he returned to his inn.
The next day the magician called for the twelve lamps, paid the man his full price for them, put them into a basket which he brought on purpose, and, with the basket hanging on his arm, went directly to Aladdin’s palace; and when he came near it, he began crying, “Who will change old lamps for new ones?” As he went along, he gathered a crowd of children about him who hooted at him, and thought him, as did all who chanced to be passing by, mad or a fool, to offer to change new lamps for old ones.
The African magician never minded their scoffs and hootings, or all they could say to him, but still continued crying, “Who will change old lamps for new ones?” He repeated this so often, walking backwards and forwards about the princess Badr-oul-boudour’s palace, that the princess, who was then in the hall with the four-and-twenty windows, hearing a man cry something, and not being able to distinguish his words, by reason of the hooting of the children and increasing mob about him, sent one of her women slaves down to know what he cried.
The slave was not long before she returned, and ran into the hall, laughing so heartily that the princess could not forbear herself. “Well, giggler,” said the princess, “will you tell me what you laugh at?” “Madam,” answered the slave, laughing still, “who can forbear laughing, to see a fool, with a basket on his arm, full of fine new lamps, asking to exchange them for old ones? The children and mob crowding about him so that he can hardly stir, make all the noise they can by deriding him.”
Another woman slave, hearing this, said, “Now you speak of lamps, I know not whether the princess may have observed it, but there is an old one upon the cornice, and whoever owns it will not be sorry to find a new one in its stead. If the princess has a mind, she may have the pleasure to try if this fool is so silly as to give a new lamp for an old one, without taking anything for the exchange.”
The lamp this slave spoke of was Aladdin’s Wonderful Lamp, which he, for fear of losing it, had laid upon the cornice before he went hunting; which precaution he made use of several times before, but neither the princess, the slaves, nor the eunuchs had ever taken notice of it. At all other times but hunting, he carried it about him, and then, indeed, he might have locked it up; but other people have been guilty of as great oversights, and will be so to the end of time.
The princess Badr-oul-boudour, who knew not the value of this lamp, and the interest that Aladdin, not to mention herself, had to keep it safe from everybody else, entered into the pleasantry, and bid a eunuch take it, and go and make the exchange. The eunuch obeyed, went out of the hall, and no sooner got to the palace gates, but he saw the African magician, called to him, and showing him the old lamp, said to him, “Give me a new lamp for this.”