The physician Douban entered the hall and bowed low to the ground.  The king, seeing him, called him, made him sit by his side, and showed him every mark of honour.

That evening he gave him a long and rich robe of state, and presented him with two thousand sequins.  The following day he continued to load him with favours.

Now the king had a grand-vizir who was avaricious, and envious, and a very bad man.  He grew extremely jealous of the physician, and determined to bring about his ruin.

In order to do this he asked to speak in private with the king, saying that he had a most important communication to make.

“What is it?” asked the king.

“Sire,” answered the grand-vizir, “it is most dangerous for a monarch to confide in a man whose faithfulness is not proved, You do not know that this physician is not a traitor come here to assassinate you.”

“I am sure,” said the king, “that this man is the most faithful and virtuous of men.  If he wished to take my life, why did he cure me?  Cease to speak against him.  I see what it is, you are jealous of him; but do not think that I can be turned against him.  I remember well what a vizir said to King Sindbad, his master, to prevent him from putting the prince, his son, to death.”

What the Greek king said excited the vizir’s curiousity, and he said to him, “Sire, I beg your majesty to have the condescension to tell me what the vizir said to King Sindbad.”

“This vizir,” he replied, “told King Sindbad that one ought not believe everything that a mother-in-law says, and told him this story.”

The Story of the Husband and the Parrot

A good man had a beautiful wife, whom he loved passionately, and never left if possible.  One day, when he was obliged by important business to go away from her, he went to a place where all kinds of birds are sold and bought a parrot.  This parrot not only spoke well, but it had the gift of telling all that had been done before it.  He brought it home in a cage, and asked his wife to put it in her room, and take great care of it while he was away.  Then he departed.  On his return he asked the parrot what had happened during his absence, and the parrot told him some things which made him scold his wife.

She thought that one of her slaves must have been telling tales of her, but they told her it was the parrot, and she resolved to revenge herself on him.

When her husband next went away for one day, she told on slave to turn under the bird’s cage a hand-mill; another to throw water down from above the cage, and a third to take a mirror and turn it in front of its eyes, from left to right by the light of a candle.  The slaves did this for part of the night, and did it very well.

The next day when the husband came back he asked the parrot what he had seen.  The bird replied, “My good master, the lightning, thunder and rain disturbed me so much all night long, that I cannot tell you what I have suffered.”