her,[FN#95] till she died, and her husband and mother and father
died also; when they seized me for the Royal Treasury as being
the property of an intestate, and I found my way hither, where I
became your comrade. This, then, O my brethren, is the cause of
my cullions being cut off; and peace be with you! He ceased and
his fellow began in these words the

Tale of the Second Eunuch, Kafur.

Know, O my brothers that, when beginning service as a boy of
eight, I used to tell the slave dealers regularly and exactly one
lie every year, so that they fell out with one another, till at
last my master lost patience with me and, carrying me down to the
market, ordered the brokers to cry, "Who will buy this slave,
knowing his blemish and making allowance for it?" He did so and
they asked him, "Pray, what may be his blemish?" and he answered,
"He telleth me one single lie every year." Now a man that was a
merchant came up and said to the broker, "How much do they allow
for him with his blemish?" "They allow six hundred dirhams," he
replied; and said the other, "Thou shalt have twenty dirhams for
thyself." So he arranged between him and the slave dealer who
took the coin from him and the broker carried me to the
merchant's house and departed, after receiving his brokerage. The
trader clothed me with suitable dress, and I stayed in his
service the rest of my twelvemonth, until the new year began
happily. It was a blessed season, plenteous in the produce of the
earth, and the merchants used to feast every day at the house of
some one among them, till it was my master's turn to entertain
them in a flower garden without the city. So he and the other
merchants went to the garden, taking with them all that they