ding him
to accompany them to Shiraz, from whence it would be easy for him to
return to Bagdad, and with considerable profit. They took him through
the cities of Sultania, Rei, Coam, Kaschan, Ispahan, and then to
Shiraz, where he was induced to go with them to India, and then return
again to Shiraz.

In this way, reckoning also the time Ali Cogia resided in each city,
it was now nearly seven years since he had quitted Bagdad, and he
determined to return. Till this period the friend to whom he had
intrusted the jar of olives before he left that city had never thought
more of him or his jar. At the very time that Ali Cogia was on his
return with a caravan from Shiraz, one evening as his friend the
merchant was at supper with his family, the conversation by accident
turned upon olives, and his wife expressed a desire of eating some,
adding that it was a long time since any had been produced in her
house.

"Now you speak of olives," said the merchant, "you remind me that Ali
Cogia, when he went to Mecca seven years since, left me a jar of them,
which he himself placed in my warehouse, that he might find them there
on his return. But I know not what is become of Ali Cogia. Some one,
it is true, on the return of the caravan, told me that he was gone
into Egypt. He must have died there, as he has never returned in the
course of so many years; we may surely eat the olives if they are
still good. Give me a dish and a light, and I will go and get some,
that we may taste them."

"In the name of God," replied the wife, "do not, my dear husband,
commit so disgraceful an action; you well know that nothing is so
sacred as a trust of this kind. You say that it is seven years since
Ali Cogia went to Mecca, and he has never returned; but you were
informed he was gone into Egypt, and how can you ascertain that he has
not gone still farther? It is enough that you have received no
intelligence of his death; he may return to-morrow or the day after
to-morrow. Consider how infamous it would be for you, as well as your
family, if he were to return, and you could not restore the jar into
his hands in the same state as when he intrusted it to your care. For
my part, I declare that I neither wish for any of these olives, nor
will eat any of them. What I said was merely by way of conversation.
Besides, do you suppose that, after so long a time, the olives can be
good? They must be spoiled. And if Ali Cogia returns, as I have a
foreboding that