THE STORY OF THE FALSE PRINCE.
THERE was once a worthy tailor’s apprentice named Labakan, who was learning his trade from a clever master at Alexandria.
Labakan.
No one could accuse the young man of being awkward in plying his needle, on the contrary he worked very well indeed. Neither was he at all lazy, and yet there was certainly something wrong with him, for though at times he would sit and sew for hours at such a rate that his needle became red-hot, yet another time, and this occurred pretty frequently, too, he sat wrapped in thought, staring before him with unseeing eyes, and having altogether such a very singular appearance, that his master and his fellow apprentices would nudge each other and say: “Labakan is putting on his grand airs again.”
On Friday, when other folk were returning quietly homewards to their work after their prayers, Labakan strutted out from the mosque, decked in fine clothes, which had cost him a good deal of trouble to procure, and paraded himself through the streets and squares of the city. When any of his companions met him and saluted him with: “Peace be with thee,” or “How is it with thee to-day, friend Labakan?” he would merely reply by a wave of the hand, or a dignified nod. Sometimes his master would say to him in a joke: “What a fine prince you would make, to be sure, Labakan.” Then, instead of seeing he was being laughed at, he would be delighted and replied—“So you have noticed that too, my master? I have long thought so myself.”
And so the foolish apprentice would go on, but his master put up with his nonsense because he was not only a very clever workman, but a good fellow too.
But one day the Sultan’s brother Selim, who happened to be travelling through Alexandria, sent a robe to Labakan’s master to have some slight alteration made. The work was given to Labakan, because his work was finer than that of any of the other apprentices.
In the evening, when the master and the men had all gone home to enjoy a little well-earned rest and amusement after the labours of the day, an irresistible longing drew Labakan back to the workshop, for he wished to feast his eyes upon the Prince Selim’s robe.
For some time he stood before it admiring the gold embroidery and the brilliant colours of the silk and velvet, until at length he could resist no longer and put it on. It fitted him exactly as though it had been made for him. “Do I not make as fine a prince as Selim?” he asked himself, strutting backwards and forwards across the room. “How often has the master himself told me that I was born to be a prince!”