man. When he
had done so, it was as though she had been illuminated, as when light is
put in the hollow of a pumpkin. Then said she, 'This is well! this is a
fair beginning! Now look, for thy fortune will of a surety follow. Call
me now sweet bride, and knocker at the threshold of hearts!'

So Shibli Bagarag sighed, and called her this, and he said, 'Forget not
my condition, O old woman, and that I am nigh famished.'

Upon that she nodded gravely, and arose and shook her garments together,
and beckoned for Shibli Bagarag to follow her; and the two passed through
the gates of the city, and held on together through divers streets and
thoroughfares till they came before the doors of a palace with a pillared
entrance; and the old woman passed through the doors of the palace as one
familiar to them, and lo! they were in a lofty court, built all of
marble, and in the middle of it a fountain playing, splashing silvery.
Shibli Bagarag would have halted here to breathe the cool refreshingness
of the air, but the old woman would not; and she hurried on even to the
opening of a spacious Hall, and in it slaves in circle round a raised
seat, where sat one that was their lord, and it was the Chief Vizier of
the King.

Then the old woman turned round sharply to Shibli Bagarag, and said, 'How
of thy tackle, O my betrothed?'

He answered, 'The edge is keen, the hand ready.'

Then said she, ''Tis well.'

So the old woman put her two hands on the shoulders of Shibli Bagarag,
saying, 'Make thy reverence to him on the raised seat; have faith in thy
tackle and in me. Renounce not either, whatsoever ensueth. Be not
abashed, O my bridegroom to be!'

Thereupon she thrust him in; and Shibli Bagarag was abashed, and played
foolishly with his fingers, knowing not what to do. So when the Chief
Vizier saw him he cried out, 'Who art thou, and what wantest thou?'

Now, the back of Shibli Bagarag tingled when he heard the Vizier's voice,
and he said, 'I am, O man of exalted condition, he whom men know as
Shibli Bagarag, nephew to Baba Mustapha, the renowned of Shiraz; myself
barber likewise, proud of my art, prepared to exercise it.'

Then said the Chief Vizier, 'This even to our faces! Wonderful is the
audacity of impudence! Know, O nephew of the barber, thou art among them
that honour not thy art. Is it not written, For one thing thou shaft be
crowned here, for that thing be thwacked there? So also it is written,
The tongue of the insolent