ABSTRACT
IT is related, O auspicious King, that there was once-but Allah knows all-in the antiquity of time and the passage of the age and of the moment, a poor tailor in a certain city of China. I do not for the present remember the name of that city. This man had a son, called Ala al-Din, who was backward In booklearning and, from his earliest years, a most disappointing little rascal. When the child was ten, his father wished to have him taught some honourable trade; but, as he could not afford to pay for instruction, he had to be content with taking him into his own shop to learn the business of a tailor. The wayward lad, who was accustomed to wander about playing with his companions, could not constrain himself to stay in the shop for one whole day. Instead of attending to the work, he took every advantage of his father’s absence or attention with a client to slip out and play in the streets and gardens with young urchins of his own inclination. His conduct continued to be so idle and disobedient that his father soon ceased from checking him, and let him go his own disastrous way. The poor man was stricken down by illness in the midst of his grief, but even his death did not turn Ala alDin from his dissolute courses.
