d be so good,
therefore send for some olive-merchants, and let me hear what is
their opinion." Two boys, as olive-merchants, then presented
themselves. "Are you olive-merchants?" said the sham cauzee.
"Tell me how long olives will keep fit to eat."

"Sir," replied the two merchants, "let us take what care we can,
they will hardly be worth any thing the third year; for then they
have neither taste nor colour." "If it be so," answered the
cauzee, "look into that jar, and tell me how long it is since
those olives were put into it?"

The two merchants pretended to examine and to taste the olives,
and told the cauzee they were new and good. "You are mistaken,"
said the young cauzee; "Ali Khaujeh says he put them into the jar
seven years ago."

"Sir," replied the merchants, "we can assure you they are of this
year's growth: and we will maintain there is not a merchant in
Bagdad but will say the same."

The feigned merchant who was accused would have objected against
the evidence of the olive-merchants; but the pretended cauzee
would not suffer him. "Hold your tongue," said he, "you are a
rogue; let him be impaled." The children then concluded their
play, clapping their hands with great joy, and seizing the
feigned criminal to carry him to execution.

Words cannot express how much the caliph Haroon al Rusheed
admired the sagacity and sense of the boy who had passed so just
a sentence, in an affair which was to be pleaded before himself
the next day. He withdrew, and rising off the bench, asked the
grand vizier, who heard all that had passed, what he thought of
it. "Indeed, commander of the true believers," answered the grand
vizier Jaaffier, "I am surprised to find so much sagacity in one
so young."

"But," answered the caliph, "do you know one thing? I am to
pronounce sentence in this very cause to-morrow; the true Ali
Khaujeh presented his petition to me to-day; and do you think,"
continued he, "that I can give a better sentence?" "I think not,"
answered the vizier, "if the case is as the children represented
it." "Take notice then of this house," said the caliph, "and
bring the boy to me to-morrow, that he may try this cause in my
presence; and also order the cauzee, who acquitted the merchant,
to attend to learn his duty from a child. Take care likewise to
bid Ali Khaujeh bring his jar of olives with him, and let two
olive-merchants attend." After this charge he pursued his rounds,
without meeting with any thing