The next day the magician called for the twelve lamps, paid the man his full price for them, put them into a basket which he brought on purpose, and, with the basket hanging on his arm, went directly to Aladdin’s palace; and when he came near it, he began crying, “Who will change old lamps for new ones?” As he went along, he gathered a crowd of children about him who hooted at him, and thought him, as did all who chanced to be passing by, mad or a fool, to offer to change new lamps for old ones.
The African magician never minded their scoffs and hootings, or all they could say to him, but still continued crying, “Who will change old lamps for new ones?” He repeated this so often, walking backwards and forwards about the princess Badr-oul-boudour’s palace, that the princess, who was then in the hall with the four-and-twenty windows, hearing a man cry something, and not being able to distinguish his words, by reason of the hooting of the children and increasing mob about him, sent one of her women slaves down to know what he cried.
The slave was not long before she returned, and ran into the hall, laughing so heartily that the princess could not forbear herself. “Well, giggler,” said the princess, “will you tell me what you laugh at?” “Madam,” answered the slave, laughing still, “who can forbear laughing, to see a fool, with a basket on his arm, full of fine new lamps, asking to exchange them for old ones? The children and mob crowding about him so that he can hardly stir, make all the noise they can by deriding him.”
Another woman slave, hearing this, said, “Now you speak of lamps, I know not whether the princess may have observed it, but there is an old one upon the cornice, and whoever owns it will not be sorry to find a new one in its stead. If the princess has a mind, she may have the pleasure to try if this fool is so silly as to give a new lamp for an old one, without taking anything for the exchange.”
The lamp this slave spoke of was Aladdin’s Wonderful Lamp, which he, for fear of losing it, had laid upon the cornice before he went hunting; which precaution he made use of several times before, but neither the princess, the slaves, nor the eunuchs had ever taken notice of it. At all other times but hunting, he carried it about him, and then, indeed, he might have locked it up; but other people have been guilty of as great oversights, and will be so to the end of time.