the crier that he could not comprehend how so small and poor a
piece could be priced so high.

The crier, who took him for a merchant, replied, 'Sir, if this
price seems so extravagant to you, your amazement will be greater
when I tell you I have orders to raise it to forty purses, and not
to part with it for less.'

'Certainly,' answered Prince Houssain, 'it must have something very
extraordinary about it, which I know nothing of.'

'You have guessed right, sir,' replied the crier, 'and will own as
much when you come to know that whoever sits on this piece of
carpet may be transported in an instant wherever he desires to go
without being stopped by any obstacle.'

At this the Prince of the Indies, considering that the principal
motive of his journey was to carry some singular curiosity home to
the sultan his father, thought that be could not meet with anything
which could give him more satisfaction. 'If the carpet,' said he to
the crier, 'has the virtue you assign it, I shall not think forty
purses too much but shall make you a present besides.'

'Sir,' replied the crier, 'I have told you the truth; and it will
be an easy matter to convince you of it, as soon as you have made
the bargain for forty purses, by experiment. But as I suppose you
have not so much with you, and that I must go with you to the khan
where you lodge, with the leave of the master of the shop we will
go into his back shop, and I will spread the carpet; and when we
have both sat down, and you have formed the wish to be transported