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forty male slaves to escort and attend them. If, then, thy son avail unto this, I will marry him to my daughter.”
Alaeddin’s mother returned home, shaking her head and saying, “Whence shall my poor son get these dishes of jewels? Supposing, for the jewels and the dishes, that he return to the treasure and gather the whole from the trees,—and withal methinketh not it is possible to him; but say that he fetch them,—whence [shall he get] the slaves and slave-girls?” And she gave not over talking to herself till she reached the house, where Alaeddin awaited her, and when she came in to him, she said to him, “O my son, said I not to thee, ‘Think not to attain to the Lady Bedrulbudour’? Indeed, this is a thing that is not possible unto folk like ourselves.” Quoth he, “Tell me what is the news.” And she said to him, “O my son, the Sultan received me with all courtesy, according to his wont, and meseemeth he meant fairly by us, but [for] thine accursed enemy the Vizier; for that, after I had bespoken the Sultan in thy name, even as thou badest me, reminding him that the term for which he had appointed us was past and saying to him, ‘If Thy Grace would vouchsafe to give commandment for the marriage of thy daughter the Lady Bedrulbudour with my son Alaeddin,’—he turned to the Vizier and spoke to him. The Vizier
