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Updated: May 5, 2025
Most of these here are munching sweetmeats; they love them as children do, and the sweetmeat-seller never lacks trade. There he is, with a tray on his shoulder! A man with a water-pot stops by the third classes and pours some of the precious fluid into the cups held out to him, and even into one man's hands. You notice that he is careful not to touch either hand or cup.
So he revived him and he came to himself and seeing the folk flocking around him asked, "Where am I?" Answered Ali Camel-shoulder and his comrades, "We found thee lying here drugged but know not who drugged thee." Quoth Ali, "'Twas a certain sweetmeat-seller who drugged me and took the gear from me; but where is he gone?"
He said I was his father and his mother, and the direct descendant of all the gods in his Pantheon, besides controlling the destinies of the universe. He himself was but a sweetmeat-seller, and much less important than the dirt under my feet. I had heard this sort of thing before, so I asked him what he wanted.
Answered Hasan, "I know where he is," and opening the door of the closet, showed him the sweetmeat-seller within, drugged and senseless. Then he aroused him and he opened his eyes and finding himself in presence of Mercury Ali and Calamity Ahmad and the Forty, started up and said, "Where am I and who hath laid hands on me?"
Quoth his comrades, "We have seen nothing of him; but come, rise and go home with us." So they returned to the barrack, where they found Ahmad al-Danaf, who greeted Ali and enquired if he had brought the dress. He replied, "I was coming hither with it and other matters, including the Jew's head, when a sweetmeat-seller met me and drugged me with Bhang and took them from me."
So Ali took a piece and ate it and fell down senseless, for there was Bhang therein; whereupon the sweetmeat-seller seized the dress and the charger and the rest of the gear and thrusting them into the box where he kept his sweetmeats hoisted it up and made off. Presently he met a Kazi, who called to him, saying, "Come hither, O sweet-meat seller!"
"But surely I saw Marigold wreaths floating off the edge of the Ghaut only this noon," said the Adjutant. Marigold wreaths are a sign of reverence all India over. "An error an error. It was the wife of the sweetmeat-seller. She loses her eyesight year by year, and cannot tell a log from me the Mugger of the Ghaut.
Then said Ali to the prisoner, "Why didst thou thus, O Lakit?" and he replied, "My grandmother, Dalilah the Wily, bade me do it; only because Zurayk the fishmonger fore-gathered with the old woman and said, 'Mercury Ali of Cairo is a sharper and a past master in knavery, and he will certainly slay the Jew and bring hither the dress. So she sent for me and said to me, 'O Ahmad, dost thou know Ali of Cairo? Answered I, 'Indeed I do and 'twas I directed him to Ahmad al-Danaf's lodging when he first came to Baghdad. Quoth she, 'Go and set thy nets for him, and if he have brought back the gear, put a cheat on him and take it from him. So I went round about the highways of the city, till I met a sweetmeat-seller and buying his clothes and stock-in-trade and gear for ten dinars, did what was done."
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