"Let's hear it," said the Caliph.
Abu Hassan sighed, and announced: "Just for one day I would like to be Caliph."
"And what influences you to this wish?" asked Harun. "Would you carry out some important law in the State? Or look out for yourself immediately?"
"Neither one nor the other," answered Queer Abu Hassan. "I would just like to have some scamps among my neighbors thoroughly beaten."
"And you would like to be caliph merely for this purpose?" laughed Harun Alrashid.
"Certainly, sir," replied Abu Hassan, "because I cannot get a suitable punishment measured out to them in any other way. Since they are rascals, they would easily get away from the judge to whom I might denounce them."
"Do you think so?" asked the Caliph.
"They would the more surely avoid punishment," said Abu Hassan, "because their ringleader is a holy Imam of respected appearance, whom the judge would never believe capable of any wrong action, and yet they slander all the respectable people in this quarter of the city, and try by using every means to gain an influence over the consciences of the Faithful, while they themselves pay but scant attention to the laws of the Koran."
"Well," said the Caliph, as he tried to calm Abu Hassan, who had worked himself up to a rage, "perhaps your wish to see these scoundrels properly punished will come true in some way, even if you are not the Commander of the Faithful. Let us drink to the realization of your wish."