‘ 
178 Haroun, the Lonely Man of Shiraz. [Aue. 
and he in mine out of it, I would not have bawled for life with half the 
lungs he used, no, not for a hundred purses added to the hundred and 
fifty he hoped this morning to live long enough to take from their lawfuk 
owners. But thus it is; your rich rogue loves to live, whilst your poor 
honesty wishes only to die. However, to pay the devil his tribute- 
money, I must confess that the old rascal had a princely taste in women, 
for he has left me four of the handsomest wives that the sun shall see in 
a day’s journey. Come hither, you pretty rogues.’ The disconsolate 
widows smiled, and began to cling about him. Haroun kissed them all 
with thorough heartiness, and with a fondness which was new to them. 
This was a promising compliment from a good-looking young fellow, and 
they shewed by their attentions to him how sensible they were of the force 
of it. “And now, wives, take away the dish, and hand me a kaleoon 
of the best Shiraz, and some sherbet, for I will smoke, drink, and 
ruminate awhile.” These delicacies were brought him ere the words of 
his wish were cold ; and between the sippings of sherbet and the pufiings 
of his pipe, he indulged his attentive wives with a few interrupted terms 
of endearment. After some time thus spent, he dismissed them, with 
this command: “ Wives, leave me, for I feel that Iam growing profound.” 
The fact was he was growing fuddled. They obeyed ; and knocking out ~ 
the old man’s ashes from the top of the pipe, he finished it with as much 
Satisfaction as if he had begun it. “ Well,” ruminated he, “ Time was 
not bald in a day, nor the world made after dinner of an orange. I 
am not so rich as I was in the morning—but I am richer, ay, and 
happier than I was last night. Give Alla thanks, honest Haroun, for 
you are in favour with fortune: you have four handsome wives, abun- 
dance of fair children which you never had the trouble of begetting, a 
house instead of a hut, a hundred pieces of gold in promise from the 
Cadi, and a hundred or so of diamonds, which you may carry into 
Turkey, under pretence of visiting a rich relation there, and so safely 
dispose of them, and come back with camels laden with merchandize to 
your wives and children, who may yet, under your tuition, seeing as 
they must the worth and wisdom of their father, become princes and 
princesses; and you may yet be renowned throughout the world, for 
converting the sons of a robber into honest and great men.” With 
flattering thoughts such as these, together with sherbet and tobacco, 
he gradually lulled his senses, and after he had stretched himself witha 
yawn and a shudder at its close, he dropt his pipe, which was now out, 
and then himself, on the couch, and was asleep. His wives returned, 
and seeing that he was drowned in a deep slumber, they began to 
examine the superficies of their new lord; and as he was a younger and 
a handsomer man than their late lord and tyrant, it was agreed by the 
four voices as one that the exchange was certainly for the better; so 
they covered him up carefully and comfortably, and on tiptoe left the. 
chamber. fos 
He had not long been asleep when it might be perceived, by his, 
tossing, and tumbling, and muttering, that he was dreaming... His. 
imagination, excited by the accidents of the day, began to wing to, the, 
remotest lands of speculation, and now he was, in his deceitful dreamy. 
a merchant rich as the Ind; and now a king, beloved of his people and. 
the terror of the rest of the world; and now he was again the poor, 
basket-maker, eating of scanty bread; and now still Jower in the grade} 
of misery—a beggar, spurned from a rich man’s door. But at. lengths) 
