saying, "My son, you may return when you please, there is the
glass you are to use." Zeyn and Mobarec took leave of the sultan
of the genii, and went towards the lake. The boatman with the
elephant's head brought the boat, and ferried them over the lake
as he had done before. They joined their servants, and returned
with them again to Cairo.

The young sultan rested a few days at Mobarec's house, and then
said to him, "Let us go to Bagdad, to seek a maiden for the
sovereign of the genii." "Why, are we not at Grand Cairo?" said
Mobarec: "shall we not there find beautiful maidens?" "You are
in the right," answered the prince; "but how shall we explore
where they are?" "Do not trouble yourself about that," answered
Mobarec; "I know a very shrewd old woman, whom I will entrust
with the affair, and she will acquit herself well."

Accordingly the old woman found means to shew the sultan a
considerable number of beautiful maidens of fifteen years of age;
but when he had viewed them, and came to consult his
looking-glass, the fatal touchstone of their virtue, the glass
always appeared sullied. All the maidens in the court and city,
who were in their fifteenth year, underwent the trial one after
another, but the glass never remained bright and clear.

When they saw there were no chaste maidens to be found in Cairo,
they went to Bagdad, where they hired a magnificent palace in one
of the chief quarters of the city, and began to live splendidly.
They kept open house; and after all people had eaten in the
palace, the fragments were carried to the dervises, who by that
means had comfortable subsistence.