this information she returned home.  Ahmed met her at the door, but was received with a frown, nor could all his caresses obtain a smile or a word; for several hours she continued silent, and in apparent misery, at length she said, “Cease your caresses, unless you are ready to give me a proof that you do really and sincerely love me.”  “What proof of love,” exclaimed poor Ahmed, “can you desire that I will not give?” “Give over cobbling, it is a vile, low trade, and never yields more than ten or twelve dinars a day.  Turn astrologer; your fortune will be made, and I shall have all I wish and be happy.”  “Astrologer!” cried Ahmed—­“astrologer!  Have you forgotten who I am—­a cobbler, without any learning—­that you want me to engage in a profession which requires so much skill and knowledge?” “I neither think nor care about your qualifications,” said the enraged wife; “all I know is that if you do not turn astrologer immediately, I will be divorced from you to-morrow.”  The cobbler remonstrated, but in vain.  The figure of the astrologer’s wife, with her jewels and her slaves, took complete possession of her imagination.  All night it haunted her:  she dreamt of nothing else, and on awakening declared that she would leave the house if her husband did not comply with her wishes.  What could poor Ahmed do?  He was no astrologer, but he was dotingly fond of his wife, and he could not bear the idea of losing her.  He promised to obey, and having sold his little stock, bought an astrolabe, an astronomical almanac, and a table of the twelve signs of the zodiac.  Furnished with these, he went to the marketplace, crying, “I am an astrologer!  I know the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the twelve signs of the zodiac; I can calculate nativities; I can foretell everything that is to happen.”  No man was better known than Ahmed the Cobbler.  A crowd soon gathered round him.  “What, friend Ahmed,” said one, “have you worked till your head is turned?” “Are you tired of looking down at your last,” cried another, “that you are now looking up at the stars?” These and a thousand other jokes assailed the ears of the poor cobbler, who notwithstanding continued to exclaim that he was an astrologer, having resolved on doing what he could to please his beautiful wife.

It so happened that the king’s jeweller was passing by.  He was in great distress, having lost the richest ruby belonging to the king.  Every search had been made to recover this inestimable jewel, but to no purpose; and as the jeweller knew he could no longer conceal its loss from the king, he looked forward to death as inevitable.  In this hopeless state, while wandering about the town, he reached the crowd around Ahmed, and asked what was the matter.  “Don’t you know Ahmed the Cobbler?” said one of the bystanders, laughing.  “He has been inspired and is become an astrologer.”  A drowning man will catch at a broken reed:  the jeweller no sooner heard the sound of the word astrologer than he went up to Ahmed, told him what had happened,