for a while of time;”—­And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased to say her permitted say.  Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, “How sweet is thy story, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable!” Quoth she, “And where is this compared with that I would relate to you on the coming night an the King suffer me to survive?” Now when it was the next night and that was

The Seven hundred and Thirty-First Night,

Dunyazad said to her, “Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!” She replied, “With love and good will!” It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting and of deeds fair seeming and worthy celebrating, that quoth the Fakir to the Wazir, “By Allah, O my lord, my heart hath indeed been with thee for this space of seven years; and often as I went to thy mansion, they told me that the Sultan is wroth with the Wazir; withal I still awaited for thee until this very day, when I repaired to thy quarters according to my custom and I found in thy house much folk, this sweeping and that sprinkling and that spreading, and all were in joyous case.  So I asked of the by-standers and they informed me that the Sovran hath become satisfied with thee and that on the ensuing night thou wilt hie thee home for that this thy saying is soothfast."[FN#335] “O Darwaysh,” replied the other, " ’Tis true that I sent to my household and informed them thereof, for that I have received welcome news from an event befel me; so I bade apprise those at home that the Sultan is satisfied with me; and to me, O Darwaysh, hath betided a matter wondrous and an occurrence marvellous; were it written with needle-gravers upon the eye-corners it had been a warning to whoso would be warned.”  The Fakir asked, “And what may be that?” and the other answered, “By Allah, O Darwaysh, the while I was in the service of His Highness the King, I was a true counsellor to him and pitiful to the lieges and I never deceived him nor did I betray him at any time at all; and often as he sent me to a place wherein were mutual strife and trouble and wrong and tyranny, I smoothed matters and pacified the folk and righted wrongs amongst them by the power of Almighty Allah.  But one day of the days, my mind was set upon riding out to the waste lands about the town and the gardens thereof, by way of solacing my self; so I embarked in a little caique[FN#336] upon the river and when we were amid stream I had a longing for coffee[FN#337]; so I said to the boatman, ’Abide this place and throw out the anchor while we drink coffee.’  Hereat all my suite arose and busied themselves in preparing it until ’twas ready and I had a finjan[FN#338] worth a treasury[FN#339] of money which they filled and passed to me.  I took it as I was sitting upon the gunwale of the boat whence it dropped into the stream; and I was sorely sorrowful therefor, because