To return to El Abbas, when he alighted from his charger, he put
off his harness of war and rested awhile; after which he brought
out a shirt of Venetian silk and a gown of green damask and
donning them, covered himself with a turban of Damietta stuff and
girt his middle with a handkerchief. Then he went out a-walking
in the thoroughfares of Baghdad and fared on till he came to the
bazaar of the merchants. There he found a merchant, with chess
before him; so he stood watching him and presently the other
looked up at him and said to him, "O youth, what wilt thou stake
upon the game?" And he answered, "Be it thine to decide." "Then
be it a hundred dinars," said the merchant, and El Abbas
consented to him, whereupon quoth he, "O youth, produce the
money, so the game may be fairly stablished." So El Abbas brought
out a satin purse, wherein were a thousand dinars, and laid down
an hundred dinars therefrom on the edge of the carpet, whilst the
merchant did the like, and indeed his reason fled for joy, whenas
he saw the gold in El Abbas his possession.

The folk flocked about them, to divert themselves with watching
the play, and they called the bystanders to witness of the wager
and fell a-playing. El Abbas forbore the merchant, so he might
lead him on, and procrastinated with him awhile; and the merchant
won and took of him the hundred dinars. Then said the prince,
"Wilt thou play another game?" And the other answered, "O youth,
I will not play again, except it be for a thousand dinars." Quoth
the prince, "Whatsoever thou stakest, I will match thy stake with
the like thereof." So the merchant brought out a thousand dinars
and the prince covered them with other thousand. Then they fell
a-playing, but El Abbas was not long with him ere he beat him in
the square of the elephant,[FN#77] nor did he leave to do thus