Now he opened them and looked at the Little Tailor. "I
know a story," said he, "about a Genie who was as big as a giant,
and six times as powerful. And besides that," he added, "the
story is all about treasures of gold, and palaces, and kings, and
emperors, and what not, and about a cave such as that in which I
myself found the treasure of the forty thieves."
The Blacksmith who made Death sit in the pear-tree clattered the
bottom of his canican against the table. "Aye, aye," said he,
"that is the sort of story for me. Come, friend, let us have it."
"Stop a bit," said Fortunatus; "what is this story mostly about?"
"It is," said Ali Baba, "about two men betwixt whom there was--
Not a Pin to Choose.
Once upon a time, in a country in the far East, a merchant was
travelling towards the city with three horses loaded with rich
goods, and a purse containing a hundred pieces of gold money. The
day was very hot, and the road dusty and dry, so that, by-and-by,
when he reached a spot where a cool, clear spring of water came
bubbling out from under a rock beneath the shade of a wide-spreading wayside tree, he was glad
enough to stop and refresh
himself with a draught of the clear coolness and rest awhile. But
while he stooped to drink at the fountain the purse of gold fell
from his girdle into the tall grass, and he, not seeing it, let
it lie there, and went his way.
Now it chanced that two fagot-makers--the elder by name Ali, the
younger Abdallah--who had been in the woods all day chopping
fagots, came also travelling the same way, and stopped at the
same fountain to drink.
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