d and turned his head in the manner of
the knowing ones, and he recited the verse:

'Tis well that we are sometimes circumspect,
And hold ourselves in witless ways deterred:
One thwacking made me seriously reflect;
A SECOND turned the cream of love to curd:
Most surely that profession I reject
Before the fear of a prospective THIRD.

So the Vizier said, ''Tis well, thou turnest verse neatly' And he
exclaimed extemporaneously:

If thou wouldst have thy achievement as high

As the wings of Ambition can fly:
If thou the clear summit of hope wouldst attain,
And not have thy labour in vain;
Be steadfast in that which impell'd, for the peace
Of earth he who leaves must have trust:
He is safe while he soars, but when faith shall cease,
Desponding he drops to the dust.

Then said he, 'Fear no further thwacking, but honour and prosperity in
the place of it. What says the poet?--

"We faint, when for the fire
There needs one spark;
We droop, when our desire
Is near its mark."

How near to it art thou, O Shibli Bagarag! Know, then, that among this
people there is great reverence for the growing of hair, and he that is
hairiest is honoured most, wherefore are barbers creatures of especial
abhorrence, and of a surety flourish not. And so it is that I owe my
station to the esteem I profess for the cultivation of hair, and to my
persecution of the clippers of it. And in this kingdom is no one that
beareth such a crop as I, saving one, a clothier, an accursed one!--and
may a blight fall upon him for his vanity and his affectation of solemn
priestliness, and his lolling in his shop-front to be admired and
marvelled at by the people. So this fellow I would disgrace and bring to
scorn,--this Shagpat! for he is mine enemy, and the eye of the King my
master is on him. Now I conceive thy assistance in this matter, Shibli
Bagarag,--thou, a barber.'

When Shibli Bagarag heard mention of Shagpat, and the desire for
vengeance in the Vizier, he was as a new man, and he smelt the sweetness
of his own revenge as a vulture smelleth the carrion from afar, and he
said, 'I am thy servant, thy slave, O Vizier!' Then smiled he as to his
own soul, and he exclaimed, 'On my head be it!'

And it was to him as when sudden gusts of perfume from garden roses of
the valley meet the traveller's nostril on the hill that overlooketh the
valley, filling him with ec