inlet of the
sea; and then he would entertain them with all the scandal and gossip of
the city, and its little folk and great. When he was outrageously
extravagant in these stories of his, Bhanavar exclaimed, 'Are such
things, now? can it be true?'

And he nodded in his conceit, and replied loftily, ''Tis certain, O my
Prince and Princess! ye be from the mountains, unused to the follies and
dissipations of men where they herd; and ye know them not, men!'

The lamps being lit in the garden to the edges of the water, where they
lay one evening, Ukleet, who had been in his briskest mood, became grave,
and put his forefinger to the side of his nose and began, 'Hear ye aught
of the great tidings? Wullahy! no other than the departure of the wife of
Boolp, the broker, into darkness. 'Tis of Boolp ye hire this house, and
had ye a hundred houses in this city ye might have had them from Boolp
the broker, he that's rich; and glory to them whom Allah prospereth, say
I! And I mention this matter, for 'tis certain now Boolp will take
another wife to him to comfort him, for there be two things beloved of
Boolp, and therein manifesteth he taste and the discernment of
excellence, and what is approved; and of these two things let the love of
his hoards of the yellow-skinned treasure go first, and after that
attachment to the silver-skinned of creation, the fair, the rapturous;
even to them! So by this see ye not Boolp will yearn in his soul for
another spouse? Now, O ye well-matched pair! what a chance were this,
knew ye but a damsel of the mountains, exquisite in symmetry, a moon to
enrapture the imagination of Boolp, and in the nature of things herit his
possessions! for Boolp is an old man, even very old.'

They laughed, and cried, 'We know not of such a damsel, and the broker
must go unmarried for us.'

When next Ukleet sat before them, Almeryl took occasion to speak of Boolp
again, and said, 'This broker, O Ukleet, is he also a lender of money?'

Ukleet replied, 'O my Prince, he is or he is not: 'tis of the maybes. I
wot truly Boolp is one that baiteth the hook of an emergency.'

The brows of the Prince were downcast, and he said no more; but on the
following morning he left Bhanavar early under a pretext, and sallied
forth from the house of their abode alone.

Since their union in that city they had not been once apart, and Bhanavar
grieved and thought, 'Waneth his love for me?' and she called her women
to her, and dressed