As I was passing one day in the market, I found that a thief had
broken into the shop of a money-changer and taken thence a
casket, with which he had made off to the burial-grounds. So I
followed him thither [and came up to him, as] he opened the
casket and fell a-looking into it; whereupon I accosted him,
saying, "Peace be on thee!" And he was startled at me. Then I
left him and went away from him.
Some months after this, I met him again under arrest, in the
midst of the guards and officers of the police, and he said to
them, "Seize yonder man." So they laid hands on me and carried me
to the chief of the police, who said, "What hast thou to do with
this fellow?" The thief turned to me and looking a long while in
my face, said, "Who took this man?" Quoth the officers, "Thou
badest us take him; so we took him." And he said, "I seek refuge
with God! I know not this man, nor knoweth he me; and I said not
that to you but of a man other than this." So they released me,
and awhile afterward the thief met me in the street and saluted
me, saying, "O my lord, fright for fright! Hadst thou taken aught
from me, thou hadst had a part in the calamity."[FN#146] And I
said to him, "God [judge] between thee and me!" And this is what
I have to tell'
Then came forward the thirteenth officer and said, 'I will tell
you a story that a man of my friends told me. (Quoth he)