ousings of
brocade and a thousand dinars, saying, “Expend this upon thyself against
the building be completed.” Accordingly Abu Kir donned the dress and
mounting the horse, became as he were an Emir. Moreover the King
assigned him a house and bade furnish it; so they furnished it for
him.——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her
permitted say.


       Now when it was the Nine Hundred and Thirty-fourth Night,

She resumed, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the King
assigned a house to Abu Kir and bade furnish it and he took up his abode
therein. On the morrow he mounted and rode through the city, whilst the
architects went before him; and he looked about him till he saw a place
which pleased him and said, “This stead is seemly;” whereupon they
turned out the owner and carried him to the King, who gave him as the
price of his holding, what contented him and more. Then the builders
fell to work, whilst Abu Kir said to them, “Build thus and thus and do
this and that,” till they built him a dyery that had not its like;
whereupon he presented himself before the King and informed him that
they had done building the dyery and that there needed but the price of
the dye-stuffs and gear to set it going. Quoth the King, “Take these
four thousand dinars to thy capital and let me see the first fruits of
thy dyery.” So he took the money and went to the market where, finding
dye-stuffs[203] plentiful and well-nigh worthless, he bought all he
needed of materials for dyeing; and the King sent him five hundred
pieces of stuff, which he set himself to dye of all colours and then he
spread them before the door of his dyery. When the folk passed by the
shop, they saw a wonder-sight whose like they had never in their lives
seen; so they crowded about the entrance, enjoying the spectacle and
questioning the dyer and saying, “O master, what are the names of these
colours?” Quoth he, “This is red and that yellow and the other green”
and so on, naming the rest of the colours. And