(CHIEF OF POLICE with ISHAK)

ISHAK
I tell you, I do not know precisely where I left them.
It was somewhere in this quarter. It may have been this balcony
they went to or that, but there are a thousand balconies.
It was above a fountain, but there are a million fountains.
I tell you they always come back. Have you not already twenty
such scares as these for the safety of the Caliph?

CHIEF OF POLICE
Never and on no preceding occasion has his exalted name
been so long delayed in his return to the palace.
The day is dawning.

ISHAK
I tell you, if you do find him you will get no thanks,
O man of arms. Will you dare to unstick the Ruler of the Moslem World
from the embrace of his latest slave girl or dash the cup of pleasure
from his reluctant hand?

CHIEF OF POLICE
I tell you, if you do not find him, man of letters, I will have you
impaled upon a monstrous pen.
(Seizes him.)

ISHAK
Thou beastly, blood-drinking brute and bloated bully,
take off thy stable-reeking hands.