Thus do the most trivial causes often lead to great results; and this, O Sire, is the story of the Dwarf Nosey.
Such was the story of the Frankish slave. When he had finished, Ali Banu had fruits served to him and the other slaves, and conversed, while they were eating, with his friends. The young men who had been introduced into the room so stealthily, were loud in their praises of the sheik, his house, and all his surroundings. "Really," said the young writer, "there is no pleasanter way of passing the time than in hearing stories. I could sit here the livelong day with my legs crossed, and one arm resting on a cushion, with my head supported by my hand, and, if allowable, the sheik's nargileh in my hand, and so situated listen to stories with the greatest zest. Something like this, I fancy, will be our existence in the Gardens of Mohammed."
"So long as you are young and able to work," replied the old man, who had conducted the young men into the house, "you can not be in earnest in such an idle wish. At the same time, I admit that there is a peculiar charm about these narratives. Old as I am--and I am now in my seventy-seventh year--and much as I have already heard in my life, still I am not ashamed when I see a large crowd gathered round a story-teller at the corner, to take my place there too and listen to him. The listener dreams that he is an actor in the events that are narrated; he lives for the time being amongst these people, among these wonderful spirits, with fairies and other folk, whom one does not meet every day; and has afterwards, when he is alone, the means of entertaining himself, just as does the traveller through the desert, who has provided well for his wants."
"I had never thought much about wherein the charm of these stories lay," responded another of the young men. "But I agree with you. When I was a child, I could always be quieted with a story. It mattered not, at first, of what it treated, so long as it was told me, so long as it was full of incidents and changes. How often have I, without experiencing the slightest fatigue, listened to those fables which wise men have devised, and in which they express a world of wisdom in a sentence: stories of the fox and the foolish stork, of the fox and the wolf, and dozens of stories of lions and other animals. As I grew older, and associated more with men, those short stories failed to satisfy me; I required longer ones, which treated too of people and their wonderful fortunes."
"Yes, I recall that time very plainly," interrupted one of the last speaker's friends. "It was you who created in us the desire for stories of all kinds. One of your slaves knew as many as a camel-driver could tell on the trip from Mecca to Medina. And when he was through with his work, he had to sit down with us on the grassplot before the house, and there we would tease until he began a story; and so it went on and on until night overtook us."
"And was there not then disclosed to us a new, an undiscovered realm?" said the young writer. "The land of genii and fairies, containing, too, all the wonders of the vegetable kingdom, with palaces of emeralds and rubies, inhabited by giant slaves, who appear when a ring was turned around on the finger and back again, or by rubbing a magical lamp, and brought splendid food in golden shells? We felt that we were transported to that country; we made those marvelous voyages with Sinbad, we accompanied Haroun-al-Raschid, the wise ruler of the Faithful, on his evening walks, and we knew his vizier as well as we knew each other; in short, we lived in those stories, as one lives in his nightly dreams, and for us there was no part of the day so enjoyable as the evening, when we gathered on the grass-plot, and the old slave told us stories. But tell us, old man, why it is that this craving for stories is as strong in us to-day as it was in our childhood?"
The commotion that had arisen in the room, and the request of the steward for silence, prevented the old man from replying. The young men were uncertain whether they ought to rejoice at the prospect of hearing another story, or to feel vexed that their entertaining conversation with the old man had been broken off so suddenly. When silence had been restored, a second slave arose and began his story.
[ABNER, THE JEW,
WHO HAD SEEN NOTHING.]
Sire, I am from Mogadore, on the coast of the Atlantic, and during the time that the powerful Emperor Muley Ismael reigned over Fez and Morocco, the following incident occurred, the recital of which may perhaps amuse you. It is the story of Abner, the Jew, who had seen nothing.
Jews, as you know, are to be found every-where, and every-where they are Jews--sharp, with the eye of a hawk for the slightest advantage to be gained; and the more they are oppressed the more do they exhibit the craft on which they pride themselves. That a Jew may sometimes, however, come to harm through an exhibition of his smartness, is sufficiently shown by what befel Abner, one afternoon, as he took his way through the gates of Morocco for a walk.