ABSTRACT
IT is related, O auspicious King, that there were once in Alexandria a dyer called Abu Kir and a barber named Abu Sir, who had neighbouring shops in the market.
Abu Kir was a notorious rascal, a detestable liar, and a man of exceedingly ill life. His temples must have been hewn of indestructible granite and his head formed from one of the steps of the synagogue of Jews; otherwise how are we to explain the shameless audacity which he displayed in all his sins? Among countless other pieces of roguery, he used to make most of his clients pay in advance, alleging that he had need of ready money to buy colours…and that was the last they saw of the stuffs which they had brought to be dyed. He not only spent the money in pleasant eating and drinking, but also secretly sold the stuffs which had been trusted to him and bought himself amusements of a high order with the proceeds. When the customers came to claim their goods, he would find one pretext or another to make them wait indefinitely. Thus he would say to one: ‘As Allah lives, my master, my wife lay in yesterday and I had to be up and down upon my feet all the time.’ Or to another: ‘I had guests yesterday and all my time was taken up with them; but if you come back in two days the stuff will be ready for you.’ He drew out every piece of business which came his way to such extravagant lengths that at last one of his victims would be bound to cry: ‘Come, tell me the truth about my stuffs. Give them back, for I have decided not to have them dyed.’ ‘Alas, I am in despair!’ Abu Kir would answer, lifting his hands to heaven, swearing every imaginable oath that he would tell the truth, beating his hands together and weeping. ‘Dear master,’ he would sob, ‘as soon as your stuffs were most beautifully dyed, I hung them on the drying cords outside my shop; I turned away for a moment to piss and when I looked again they had
disappeared! If you ask me, I think they were stolen by my neighbour, that most dishonest barber.’ Then, if the customer were a fine fellow, he would say: ‘Allah will make good the loss!’and go his way; if he were irritable, he would probably swear at the dyer and come to blows with him in the open street. But even so, and in spite of the kadi’s authority, no one ever got back his stuffs; because, in the first place, proof was lacking that they had been given and, in the second, there was nothing in the dyer’s shop worth seizing. For a long time Abu Kir gained a livelihood in this way; but the day came when every merchant and private individual in that quarter had been victimised, and Abu Kir saw his credit broken beyond repair and his business ruined. He had become so general an object of mistrust that his name had passed into a proverb when anyone wished to speak of bad faith.
