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this very day will I appoint to thee a grievous punishment and devise thee all manner torments and strip thy flesh from thy bones and be at rest from thee, sorry bargain that thou art!’
So saying, he unwound from his middle a piece of rope and binding him to a tree by his side, said to him, ‘Harkye, O dog of an ape! I mean to cast the net again and if aught come up therein, well and good; but, if it come up empty, I will make an end of thee, by dint of beating, and be quit of thee.’ So he cast the net and drawing it ashore, found in it another ape and said, ‘Glory be to God! I was wont to pull nought but fish out of this Tigris, but now it yields nothing but apes.’
Then he looked at the second ape and saw him round-faced and fair of fashion, with pendants of gold in his ears and a blue waistcloth about his middle, and he was like unto a lighted flambeau. So he said to him, ‘What art thou, thou also, O ape?’ And he answered, saying, ‘O Khelif, I am the ape of Aboussaadat the Jew, the Khalif’s money-changer. Every day, I give him good-morrow, and he makes a profit of ten dinars.’ ‘By Allah,’ cried the fisherman, ‘thou art a fine ape, not like this unlucky wretch of mine!’
So saying, he took a stick and came down upon the one-eyed ape’s flanks, till he broke his ribs and he jumped up and down. And the other ape answered him, saying, ‘O Khelif, what will it profit thee to beat him, though thou belabour him till he die?’ Quoth Khelif, ‘How shall I do? Shall I let him go, that he may scare me the fish with his hang-dog favour and give me good-morrow and good-even every day, so God may not provide me? Nay, I will kill him and be quit of him and thou shalt give me good-morrow [in his stead]; so shall I gain ten dinars a day.’
‘I will tell thee a better way than that,’ answered the
