" Answered
Ja'afar: "When I went out, O my lord, from before thee, intending
for my house, I saw standing at the door thy master and teacher and
partner, Khalifah the fisherman, who was aggrieved at thee and
complained of thee, saying: 'Glory be to God! I taught him to fish and
he went away to fetch me a pair of frails, but never came back. And
this is not the way of a good partner or of a good apprentice.' So, if
thou hast a mind to partnership, well and good; and if not, tell
him, that he may take to partner another."
Now when the Caliph heard these words, he smiled and his
straitness of breast was done away with and he said, "My life on thee,
is this the truth thou sayest, that the fisherman standeth at the
door?" and Ja'afar replied, "By thy life, O Commander of the Faithful,
he standeth at the door." Quoth the Caliph: "O Ja'afar, by Allah, I
will assuredly do my best to give him his due! If Allah at my hands
send him misery, he shall have it, and if prosperity, he shall have
it." Then he took a piece of paper, and cutting it in pieces, said
to the Wazir: "O Ja'afar, write down with thine own hand twenty sums
of money, from one dinar to a thousand, and the names of all kinds
of offices and dignities from the least appointment to the
Caliphate; also twenty kinds of punishment, from the hightest
beating to death.
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