The next morning he learned that Aladdin had gone with a hunting party, to be absent eight days, three of which had passed.  He needed to know no more, and quickly formed his plans.  He went to a shop and asked for a dozen copper lamps.  The master of the shop had not so many then, but promised them the next day, and said he would have them, as the magician wished, handsome and well polished.

When the magician came back and paid for them, he put them in a basket and started directly for Aladdin’s palace.  As he drew near he began crying, “Who will change old lamps for new ones?” The children and people who crowded around hooted and scoffed at him as a madman or a fool, but he heeded them not, and went on crying, “Who will change old lamps for new ones?”

The princess was in the hall with the four and twenty windows, and, seeing a crowd outside, sent one of her women slaves to find out what the man was crying.  The slave returned laughing, and told of the foolish offer.  Another slave, hearing it, said, “Now you speak of lamps, I know not whether the princess may have observed it, but there is an old one upon a shelf of the Prince Aladdin’s robing room.  Whoever owns it will not be sorry to find a new one in its stead.  If the princess chooses, she may have the pleasure of seeing whether this old man is silly enough to make the exchange.”

The princess, who knew not the value of this lamp, thought it would be a good joke to do as her slave suggested, and in a few moments it was done.  The magician did not stop to cry, “New lamps for old ones!” again, but hurried to his inn and out of the town, setting down his basket of new lamps where nobody saw him.

When he reached a lonely spot he pulled the old lamp out of his breast, and, to make sure that it was the one he wanted, rubbed it.  Instantly the genie appeared and said, “What wouldst thou have?  I am ready to obey thee as thy slave, and the slave of all those who have that lamp in their hands,—­both I and the other slaves of the lamp.”

“I command thee,” replied the magician, “to bear me and the palace which thou and the other slaves of the lamp have built in this city, with all the people in it, at once to Africa.”

The genie made no reply, but in a moment he and the other slaves of the lamp had borne the magician and the palace entire to the spot where he wished it to stand.

Early the next morning, when the Sultan went as usual to gaze upon Aladdin’s palace, it was nowhere to be seen.  How so large a building that had been standing for some years could disappear so completely, and leave no trace behind, he could not understand.  The Grand Vizier was summoned to explain it.  In secret be bore no good will to Aladdin, and was glad to suggest that the very building of the palace had been by magic, and that the hunting party had been merely an excuse for the removal of the palace by the same means.  The Sultan was persuaded, therefore, to send a body of his guards to seize Aladdin as a prisoner of state.  When he appeared the Sultan would hear no word from him, but ordered him put to death.  This displeased the people so much that the Sultan, fearing a riot, granted him his life and let him speak.