" The girl fared forth and
looked on, when she beheld a man crying, "Ho! Who will exchange old
lamps for new lamps?" and the little ones pursuing and laughing at
him. And as loudly laughed the Princess when this strange case was
told to her. Now Aladdin had carelessly left the lamp in his
pavilion without hiding it and locking it up in his strongbox, and one
of the slave girls who had seen it said: "O my lady, I think to have
noticed in the apartment of my lord Aladdin an old lamp, so let us
give it in change for a new lamp to this man, and see if his cry he
truth or lie." Whereupon the Princess said to the slave girl, "Bring
the old lamp which thou saidst to have seen in thy lord's apartment."
Now the Lady Badr al-Budur knew naught of the lamp and of the
specialities thereof which had raised Aladdin, her spouse, to such
high degree and grandeur, and her only end and aim was to understand
by experiment the mind of a man who would give in exchange the new for
the old. So the handmaid fared forth and went up to Aladdin's
apartment and returned with the lamp to her lady, who, like all the
others, knew nothing of the Maghrabi's cunning tricks and his crafty
device.
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