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thou shalt take it as a present to the Sultan. By this means I am assured that the thing will be easy to thee, and do thou stand before the Sultan and seek of him my desire; but, O my mother, an thou refuse to further me with thine endeavour for the attainment of my wish of the Lady Bedrulbudour, know that I am a dead man. Be not concerned for the gift, for these be exceeding precious jewels, and know, O my mother, that I have gone many a time to the market of the jewellers and have seen them sell jewels, that had not an hundredth part[1] of the beauty of these of ours, at exceeding high prices such as man’s wit cannot conceive. When, therefore, I saw this, I said [in myself], ‘Verily, the jewels that are with us are exceeding precious.’ So now, O my mother, arise, as I bade thee, and fetch me the China dish whereof I bespoke thee, that we may range of these jewels therein and see how they show.”
Accordingly, she arose and brought the China dish, saying in herself, “Let us see if my son’s speech be true concerning these jewels or not.” So she set the dish before Alaeddin and he brought out jewels of all kinds
- ↑ Lit. “were not equal to one quarter of a carat,” i.e. a ninety-sixth part, “carat” being here used in its technical sense of a twenty-fourth part of anything.
