his father's business, shut up the shop, sold off the implements of the trade, and with the money she got for them, and what she could get by spinning cotton, hoped to maintain herself and her son.
Aladdin, who was now no longer restrained by the fear of a father, and who cared so little for his mother that, whenever she chid him, he would fly in her face, gave himself entirely over to dissipation, and was never out of the streets from his companions. This course he followed till he was fifteen years old, without giving his mind to anything whatever, or the least reflection on what would become of him. Things being thus, as he was one day playing, according to custom, in the street, with his vagabond troop, a stranger passing by stood still to observe him.
This stranger was a famous magician, called the African Magician, as he was a native of Africa, and had been but two days come from thence.
The African magician had observed in Aladdin's countenance something which was absolutely necessary for the execution of the plan he came about; he inquired artfully about his family, who he was, and what was his disposition; and when he had learned all he desired to know, he went up to him, and taking him aside from his comrades, said to him 'Child, was not your father called Mustapha the tailor?'
'Yes, sir,' answered Aladdin, 'but he has been dead a long time.'
At these words the African magician threw his arms about Aladdin's neck, and kissed him several times with tears in his eyes. 'Alas! my son,' cried the African magician with a sigh, 'how can I forbear? I am your uncle; your good father was my own brother. I have been a great many years abroad travelling, and now that I am come home in the hope of seeing him, you tell me he is dead It is a great grief to me to be deprived of the comfort I expected. But it is some relief that, so far as I can remember him, you are so like him.' Then he asked Aladdin, putting his hand into his purse, where his mother lived; and as soon as Aladdin had informed him, he gave him a handful of small money, saying 'Go, my son, to your mother, give my love to her, and tell her that I will come and see her to-morrow, if I
