' So he bade carry her back to the
harem and saying to Alaeddin, 'Do not absent thyself from us,'
returned to his palace. Accordingly, next morning, Alaeddin
mounted and rode to the Divan, where he took his seat as Chief of
the Sixty. Presently the Khalif bade his treasurer give the
Vizier Jaafer ten thousand dinars and said to the latter, 'I
charge thee to go down to the slave-market and buy Alaeddin a
slave-girl with this sum.' So Jaafer took Alaeddin and went down
with him to the bazaar. As change would have it, that very day,
the Amir Khalid, Chief of the Baghdad Police, had gone down to
the market to buy a slave-girl for his son Hebezlem Bezazeh. Now
this son he had by his wife Khatoun, and he was foul of favour
and had reached the age of twenty, without learning to ride,
albeit his father was a valiant cavalier and a doughty champion
and delighted in battle and adventure. One night, he had a dream
of dalliance in sleep and told his mother, who rejoiced and told
his father, saying, 'Fain would I find him a wife, for he is now
apt for marriage.' Quoth Khalid, 'He is so foul of favour and
withal so evil of odour, so sordid and churlish, that no woman
would accept of him.' And she answered, 'We will buy him a slave-
girl.
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