' They slept
that night and arose on the morrow, repenting each of having
spoken angrily to the other. Then he went to the market and
accosting a druggist, said to him, 'Hast thou wherewithal to
thicken the seed?' 'I had it, but am spent of it,' answered the
druggist; 'ask my neighbour.' So Shemseddin made the round of the
bazaar, till he had asked every one; but they all laughed at him
and he returned to his shop and sat down, troubled. Now there was
in the market a man called Sheikh Mohammed Semsem, who was syndic
of the brokers and was given to the use of opium and bang and
hashish. He was poor and used to wish Shemseddin good morrow
every day; so he came to him according to his wont and saluted
him. The merchant returned his salute, and the other, seeing him
vexed, said to him, 'O my lord, what hath crossed thee?' Quoth
Shemseddin, 'These forty years have I been married to my wife,
yet hath she borne me neither son nor daughter; and I am told
that the cause of my failure to get her with child is the
thinness of my seed; so I have been seeking wherewithal to
thicken it, but found it not.' 'I have a thickener,' said Sheikh
Mohammed; 'but what wilt thou say to him who makes thy wife
conceive by thee, after forty years' barrenness? 'An thou do
this,' answered the merchant, 'I will largely reward thee.
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