"What is that?" asked he, and she said, It hath reached me that
there lived, in times of yore and years and ages long gone
before, a merchant of Cairo[FN#25] named Shams al-Din, who was of
the best and truest spoken of the traders of the city; and he had
eunuchs and servants and negro-slaves and handmaids and Mame
lukes and great store of money. Moreover, he was Consul[FN#26] of
the Merchants of Cairo and owned a wife, whom he loved and who
loved him; except that he had lived with her forty years, yet had
not been blessed with a son or even a daughter. One day, as he
sat in his shop, he noted that the merchants, each and every, had
a son or two sons or more sitting in their shops like their
sires. Now the day being Friday, he entered the Hammam-bath and
made the total-ablution: after which he came out and took the
barber's glass and looked in it, saying, "I testify that there is
no god but the God and I testify that Mohammed is the Messenger
of God!" Then he considered his beard and, seeing that the white
hairs in it covered the black, bethought himself that hoariness
is the harbinger of death. Now his wife knew the time of his
coming home and had washed and made herself ready for him, so
when he came in to her, she said, "Good evening," but he replied
"I see no good." Then she called to the handmaid, "Spread the
supper-tray;" and when this was done quoth she to her husband
"Sup, O my lord." Quoth he, "I will eat nothing," and pushing the
tray away with his foot, turned his back upon her. She asked,
"Why dost thou thus? and what hath vexed thee?"; and he answered,
"Thou art the cause of my vexation."--And Shahrazed perceived the
dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say,

When it was the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Night,