of gratifying your wish.'

Then he sent for an old lame fakir who lived in a tumbledown hut on
the outskirts of the city, and when he had presented himself, the king
said:

'No doubt, as you are very old and nearly crippled, you would be glad
of some young person to live with you and serve you; so I will send
you my younger daughter. She wants to earn her living, and she can do
so with you.'

Of course the old fakir had not a word to say, or, if he had, he was
really too astonished and troubled to say it; but the young princess
went off with him smiling, and tripped along quite gaily, whilst he
hobbled home with her in perplexed silence.

Directly they got to the hut the fakir began to think what he could
arrange for the princess's comfort; but after all he was a fakir, and
his house was bare except for one bedstead, two old cooking pots and
an earthen jar for water, and one cannot get much comfort out of those
things. However, the princess soon ended his perplexity by asking:

'Have you any money?'

'I have a penny somewhere,' replied the fakir.

'Very well,' rejoined the princess, 'give me the penny and go out and
borrow me a spinning-wheel and a loom.'

After much seeking the fakir found the penny and started on his
errand, whilst the princess went off shopping. First she bought a
farthing's worth of oil, and then she bought three farthings' worth of
flax. When she got back with her purchases she set the old man on the
bedstead and rubbed his crippled leg with the oil for an hour. Then
she sat down to the spinning-wheel and spun and spun all night long
whilst the old man slept, until, in the morning, she had spun the
finest thread that ever was seen. Next she went to the loom and wove
and wove until by the evening she had woven a beautiful silver cloth.

'Now,' said she to the fakir, 'go into the market-place and sell my
cloth whilst I rest.'

'And what am I to ask for it?' said the old man.

'Two gold pieces,' replied the princess.

So the fakir hobbled away, and stood in the market-place to sell the
cloth. Presently the elder princess drove by, and when she saw the
cloth she stopped and asked the price.

'Two gold pieces,' said the fakir. And the princess gladly paid them,
after which the old fakir hobbled home with the money. As she had
done before so Imani did again day after day. Always she spent a penny
upon oil and flax, always she tended the old man's lame limb, and spun
and wove the most bea