caressed and fondled her to her heart's content. The poor maid was
quite beside herself with delight. She kept receiving kisses and
caresses, first on the right hand and then on the left, and her face was
pale no longer, but of a burning red like the transfigured rose whereon
a drop of the blood of great Aphrodite fell. And she promised her father
and her husband that she would tell them such a lot of things--things
wondrous, unheard of, of which they had not and never could have the
remotest idea.

And through the thin iron shutters which covered the window the
Berber-Bashi curiously observed the touching scene!

They were still in the midst of their intoxication of delight when the
frequently before-mentioned neighbour of Halil, worthy Musli, thrust his
head inside the door, and witnessing the scene would discreetly have
withdrawn his perplexed countenance. But Halil, who had already caught
sight of him, bawled him a vociferous welcome.

"Nay, come along! come along! my worthy neighbour, don't stand on any
ceremony with us, you can see for yourself how merry we are!"

The worthy neighbour thereupon gingerly entered, on the tips of his
toes, with his hands fumbling nervously about in the breast of his
kaftan; for the poor fellow's hands were resinous to a degree. Wash and
scrub them as he might, the resin would persist in cleaving to them. His
awl, too, was still sticking in the folds of his turban--sticking forth
aloft right gallantly like some heron's plume. Naturally he whose
business it was to mend other men's shoes went about in slippers that
were mere bundles of rags--that is always the way with cobblers!