What is thy condition and thy income? Haply, O my son, he will ask me this before he asketh me who thou art." And 'Ala-ed-Din answered: "It is impossible that the Sultan should thus question thee after looking at the precious stones and their splendor; nor doth it boot to consider things which may not happen. Do thou only arise and ask him for his daughter for me, and offer him the jewels, and do not sit there inventing obstacles. Hast thou not already learned, O my mother, that this Lamp of mine is now a firm maintenance for us, and that all I demand of it is brought to me? And this is my hope, that by its means I shall know how to make answer to the Sultan if he ask me thus."
And 'Ala-ed-Din and his mother kept talking over the matter all that night. And when morning dawned his mother arose and plucked up courage, the more as her son had explained to her some- what of the properties of the Lamp and its virtuesthat it would supply them with all they wanted. 'Ala-ed-Din, however, when he saw that his mother had plucked up courage on his explaining to her the effects of the Lamp, feared lest she should gossip about it to the people, and said to her: "O my mother, take heed how thou tellest any one about the Lamp and its virtues, for this is our own benefit. Restrain thy thought, lest thou babble to any one about it, for fear we lose it and lose the benefit which we possess from it." And his mother answered, "Fear not for that, O my son." And she arose and took the bowl of precious stones and passed forth early, that she might reach the audience before it was crowded. And she covered the bowl with a kerchief, and went to the palace, and when she arrived the audience was not full; and she saw the ministers and sundry of the magnates of the state entering to the presence of the Sultan. And presently the levée was completed by the wezirs and lords of the state and grandees and princes and nobles. Then the Sultan appeared, and the ministers bowed down before him, and in like manner the rest of the grandees and nobles. And the Sultan seated himself on the divan on the kingly throne, and all who attended the levée stood before him with crossed arms awaiting his command to be seated. And he ordered them to sit, and every one of them sat down in his order. Then the petitioners presented them-selves before the Sultan, and he decided everything, as usual, until
