"Ah, 'tis thou, musafir! I searched for you everywhere for two whole
days after you left me, for I wanted to give you back the five thousand
piastres which you were fool enough to make me a present of. It was just
as well, however, that I did not find you, and I have long ceased
looking for you, for I have now spent all the money."
"I am glad to hear it, Halil, and I hope the money has done you a good
turn. Are you willing to receive me into your house as a guest once
more?"
"With pleasure! But you must first of all promise me two things. The
first is, that you will not contrive by some crafty device to pay me
something for what I give you gratis; and the second is, that you will
not expect to stay the night with me, but will wander across the street
and pitch your tent at the house of my worthy neighbour Musli, who is
also a bachelor, and mends slippers, and is therefore a very worthy and
respectable man."
"And why may I not sleep at your house?"
"Because you must know that there are now two of us in the house--I and
my slave-girl."
"That will not matter a bit, Halil. I will sleep on the roof, and you
take the slave-girl down with you into the house."
"It cannot be so, Janaki! it cannot be."
"Why can it not be?"
"Because I would rather sleep in a pit into which a tiger has fallen, I
would rather sleep in the lair of a hippopotamus, I would rather sleep
in a canoe guarded by alligators and crocodiles, I would rather spend a
night in a cellar full of scorpions and scolopendras, or in the Tower of
Surem, which is haunted by the accursed Jinns, than pass a single night
in the same room with this slave-girl.
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