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Updated: May 31, 2025
Alnaschar obeyed, and was on his way to a neighbouring city when he fell in with a band of robbers, who stripped him of his clothes and left him naked by the roadside. Hearing of his plight, I hurried after him to console him for his misfortunes, and to dress him in my best robe.
Our father died at a very old age, and left among us seven hundred dirhems: we divided equally, so that each of us had a hundred for his share. Alnaschar, who had never before possessed so much money, was much perplexed to know what he should do with it. He consulted a long time with himself, and at last resolved to lay it out in glass-ware which he bought of a wholesale dealer.
I had six brothers that you might justly have called prattlers; and that you may know them the better, the name of the first was Bacbouc, of the second Backbarah of the third Backback, of the fourth Barbarak, of the fifth Alnaschar, of the sixth Schacabac. These indeed were impertinent noisy fellows; but as for me, who am a younger brother, I am grave and concise in my discourses.
The neighbours, who saw my brother and the porters come and go, went and acquainted the magistrate with it; for they looked upon my brother's conduct as suspicious. Alnaschar slept well enough all night; but next morning, when he came out of his house, twenty of the magistrate's men seized him. Come along with us, said they; our master would speak with you.
When they had explained to the official the cause of complaint, he asked Alnaschar where he had obtained all the furniture that he had taken to his house the day before. "Sir," replied Alnaschar, "I am ready to tell you the whole story, but give, I pray you, your word, that I shall run no risk of punishment." "That I promise," said the judge.
By the trade which the cursed black followed, replied my brother, he must have gathered together a vast deal of riches. There is so much, said she, that you will be made for ever, if you can carry them off. Follow me, and you shall see them, said she. Alnaschar followed her to a chamber, where she showed him several coffers full of gold, which he beheld with admiration.
Now there was once a man at Bagdad who had seven sons, and when he died he left to each of them one hundred dirhems; and his fifth son, called Alnaschar the Babbler, invested all this money in some glassware, and, putting it in a big tray, from which to show and sell it, he sat down on a raised bench, at the foot of a wall, against which he leant back, placing the tray on the ground in front of him.
Never have we joined in the senseless clamor which condemned the only tax whereto we became voluntary contributors, the only resource which gave the stimulus without the danger or infatuation of gambling, the only alembic which in these plodding days sublimized our imaginations, and filled them with more delicious dreams than ever flitted athwart the sensorium of Alnaschar.
The eunuch obeyed, and put into my brother's hands a purse with five hundred pieces of gold. Alnaschar was ready to die with joy when he received it. He gave a thousand blessings to the lady, and shutting up his shop, where he had no more occasion to sit, went to his house. While he was pondering over his good luck, he heard somebody knock at his door.
The mirage of this fortune hung before successive members of the Jenkin family until her death in 1825, when it dissolved and left the latest Alnaschar face to face with bankruptcy. The grandniece, Stephen's daughter, the one who had not "married imprudently," appears to have been the first; for she was taken abroad by the golden aunt, and died in her care at Ghent in 1792.
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