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Updated: June 9, 2025
The others again addressed themselves to conversing and carousing; and, when the wine gat the better of them, the eldest lady who ruled the house rose and making obeisance to them took the cateress by the hand, and said, "Rise, O my sister and let us do what is our devoir." Both answered "Even so!"
O my sister, come and complete thy service to me. 'With all my heart! answered the cateress and took the lute and leant it against her breasts. Then she swept the strings with her finger-tips and sang the following verses: If we complain of absence, what alas! shall we say? Or if longing assail us, where shall we take our way?
Then she rose and coming with a stately gait to meet her sisters in the middle of the saloon, said to them, 'Why stand ye still? Relieve this poor porter of his burden. So the cateress came and stood before and the portress behind him and with the help of the third damsel, lifted the basket from his head and emptying it, laid everything in its place.
Then the cateress filled the cup and gave it to the portress, who took it from her hand and thanked her and drank. Then she filled again and gave it to the eldest, who filled another cup and handed it to the porter. He gave thanks and drank and recited the following verses: It is forbidden us to drink of any blood Except it be of that which gushes from the vine.
'If thou have aught, my friend, added the portress, 'then art thou something: but if thou have nothing, be off without anything. Here the cateress interposed, saying, 'O sisters, let him be: for by Allah, he has not failed us to-day: another had not been so patient with us.
Lastly they gave him two gold pieces, saying, "Wend thy ways, O Porter." Also he marvelled with exceeding marvel, especially to see no man in the place and delayed his going; whereupon quoth the eldest lady, "What aileth thee that goest not; haply thy wage be too little?" And, turning to her sister the cateress, she said, "Give him another diner!"
Let us join the night to the day, and to-morrow we will each go our own way. 'My life on you! said the cateress, 'let him pass the night with us, that we may laugh at him, for he is a pleasant rogue; and we may never again chance upon the like of him. So the mistress of the house said to the porter, 'Thou shalt pass the night with us on condition that thou submit to our authority and that, whatever thou seest, thou ask no questions about it nor enquire the reason of it. 'It is well, answered he; and they said, 'Go and read what is written over the door. So he went to the door and found the following words written thereon in letters of gold, 'He who speaks of what concerns him not, shall hear what will not please him. And he said, 'Be ye witness against me that I will not speak of what concerns me not. Then rose the cateress and prepared food, and they ate: after which they lighted the lamps and candles and strewed on the latter ambergris and aloes-wood; then changed the service and set on fresh fruits and flowers and wine and so forth and sat down again to drink.
The cateress took the flagon of wine and filled a cup and drank it off. Then she filled again and gave it to one of her sisters, who drank and filled another cup and gave it to her other sister: then she filled a fourth time and gave it to the porter, saying: Drink and fare well and health attend thee still. This drink indeed's a cure for every ill.
No! And he said again, 'The sweet basil of the dykes. Whereupon they laughed till they fell backward and cuffed him on the neck, saying, 'No; that is not its name. At last he said, 'O my sisters, what is its name? And they answered, 'What sayest thou to the peeled barleycorn? Then the cateress put on her clothes and they sat down again to carouse, whilst the porter lamented over his neck and shoulders.
Not so bad in Pasadena, with a man to send to the store, but very trying on a smiling hill-top, one mile from town, with me the only thing dimly suggestive of a chauffeur on the place. At 3 A.M. I resolved to bounce her, heavenly disposition and all. I did, and engaged a cateress for what I should call a comfortable salary, rather than wages.
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