I also began life, O King of the Age, as a Schoolmaster and had
under my charge some eighty boys. Now I was strict with such
strictness that from morning to evening I sat amongst them and
would never dismiss them to their homes before sundown. But 'tis
known to thee, O our lord the King, that boys' wits be short
after the measure of their age, and that they love naught save
play and forgathering in the streets and quarter. Withal, I took
no heed of this and ever grew harder upon them till one day all
met and with the intervention of the eldest Monitor they agreed
and combined to play me a trick. He arranged with them that next
morning none should enter the school until he had taught them,
each and every, to say as they went in, "Thy safety, O our lord,
how yellow is thy face!" Now the first who showed himself was the
Monitor and he spoke as had been agreed; but I was rough with him
and sent him away; then a second came in and repeated what the
first had said; then a third and then a fourth, until ten boys
had used the same words. So quoth I to myself, "Ho, Such-an-one!
thou must be unwell without weeting it:" then I arose and went
into the Harem and lay down therein when the Monitor, having
collected from his school-fellows some hundred-and-eighty
Nusfs,[FN#138] came in to me and cried, "Take this, O our lord,
and expend the money upon thy health." Thereupon I said to
myself, "Ho, Such-an-one! every Thursday[FN#139] thou dost not
collect sixty Faddahs from the boys," and I cried to him, "Go,
let them forth for a holiday." So he went and dismissed them from
school to the playground. On the next day he collected as much as
on the first and came in to me and said, "Expend these moneys, O
our lord, upon thy health." He did the same on the third day and
the fourth, making the boys contribute much coin and presenting
it to me; and on such wise he continued till the tenth day, when
he brought the money as was his wont. At that time I happened to
hold in my hand a boiled egg which I purposed eating, but on
sighting him I said in myself, "An he see thee feeding he will
cut off the supplies." So I crammed the egg into my chops?And
Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent and
ceased to say her permitted say. Then quoth her sister Dunyazad,
"How sweet is thy story, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and
delectable!" Quoth she, "And where is this compared with that I
would relate to you on the coming night, an the Sovran suffer me
to survive?" Now when it was the next night and that was
The Three Hundred and Sixty-fourth Night,
Dunyazad said to her, "Allah, upon thee, O my sister, an thou be
other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short
the watching of this our latter night!" She replied, "With love
and good will!" It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the
director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting
and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the
Schoolmaster said to himself, "If the Monitor see me eating the
egg now in thy hand he will cut off the supplies and assert thee
to be sound." So (continued he) I crammed the egg into my chops
and clapped my jaws together. Hereupon the lad turned to me and
cried, "O my lord, thy cheek is much swollen;" and I, "'Tis only
an imposthume." But he drew a whittle[FN#140] forth his sleeve
and coming up to me seized my cheek and slit it, when the egg
fell out and he said, "O my lord, this it was did the harm and
now 'tis passed away from thee." Such was the cause of the
splitting of my mouth, O our lord the Sultan. Now had I cast away
greed of gain and eaten the egg in the Monitor's presence, what
could have been the ill result? But all this was of the weakness
of my wit; for also had I dismissed the boys every day about
mid-afternoon, I should have gained naught nor lost aught
thereby. However the Dealer of Destiny is self-existent, and this
is my case. Then the Sultan turned to the Wazir and laughed and
said, "The fact is that whoso schooleth boys is weak of wit;" and
said the other, "O King of the Age, all pedagogues lack
perceptives and reflectives; nor can they become legal witnesses
before the Kazi because verily they credit the words of little
children without evidence of the speech being or factual or
false. So their reward in the world to come must be
abounding!"[FN#141] Then the Sultan asked the limping man,
saying, "And thou, the other, what lamed thee?" So he began to
tell