Oh, welcome, Sydy Omar!  All of Paris
  Is charmed to see you, O my Snybla dear! 
  If he would only go to Mexico,
  And stay there it would be a riddance good.

  He is a cafekeeper, and his son
  A baker.  For associate he has
  Sydy Aly Mehraz, who does his work
  Astride a thorn; he surely doth deserve
  Our compliments.  All three you see are dressed
  In duck, in fashion of the Christian men. 
  There’s de Merzong; the people say he’s good,
  But still they fear him, he is so uncouth. 
  Good God!  When he begins aloud to cry
  In Soudanese, it is enough to make
  You fly to the antipodes away.

  Oulyd ben Zamoum saw his cares increase—­
  Since he is a musician, as he thinks,
  The world is rid of him.  And when he starts
  To play the first string of the violin,
  The while the Jewess doth begin to sing!

  With him two Jews departed, and the like
  You never saw on earth.  A porcupine
  The first resembled, and the other one
  Was one-eyed.  You should hear them play the lute!

  Some persons heard my story from afar,
  Oulyd Sydy Sayd, among them, and
  Brymat, who laughed abundantly.  And with
  Them was the chief of Miliana.  All
  Were seated on an iron bench, within
  The right-hand shop.  They called me to their booth
  Where I had coffee and some sweets.  But when
  They said, “Come take a smoke,” I was confused. 
  “Impossible,” I answered, “for I have
  With Sydy Hasan Sydy Khelyl studied,
  And the Senousyya.  So I cannot.”

  Ben Aysa came to me, with angry air,
  “The Antichrist,” he said, “shall spring from thee. 
  I saw within that book you have at home
  His story truly told.”  “You’re right,” said I,
  “Much thanks!” And then I laughed to see
  Him turn his eyes in wrath.

        He said to me
  ’Tis not an action worthy of a man;
  He glared at me with eyes as big as cups
  And face an egg-plant blue.  He wanted to
  Get at me, in his rage, and do me harm.

With him my uncle was, Mahomet-ben-El-Haffaf, who remains at prayer all day.  He heard this prelude and he said to them, “It is not an affair.”  “Fear not,” they said, “For they will put you also in the song.”

  He’s tickled by the urchins’ eulogies,
  Who praise him as the master of chicane. 
  “’Tis finished now for thee to climb up masts.” 
  They add:  “You’re but a laughing-stock for all. 
  You’ve stayed here long enough.  You’d better go
  And teach Sahary oxen how to read!”

  When I recited all these lines to Sy
  Mahomet Oulyd el-Isnam, who has
  To the supreme degree the gift of being
  A bore he said to me, “Now this is song
  Most flat.”  The mice in droves within his shop
  Have eaten an ounce of wool.

          He is installed
  Within the chamber of El Boukhary. 
  In posture of a student, in his hands
  Some sky-blue wool.  “It is,” he says, “to make
  Some socks for little children, for I have
  But little wool.”