Aladdin, who knew that all the sultan’s endeavours to make this window like the rest were in vain, and that he never could compass it with credit, sent for the jewellers, and goldsmiths, and not only bid them desist from their work, but ordered them to undo what they had begun, and to carry all their jewels back to the sultan and to the vizier. They undid in a few hours what they had been six weeks about, and retired, leaving Aladdin alone in the hall. He took the lamp, which he carried about him, and rubbed it, and presently the genie appeared. “Genie,” said Aladdin, “I ordered thee to leave one of the four-and-twenty windows of this hall imperfect, and thou hast executed my commands punctually; now, I would have thee make it like the rest.” The genie immediately disappeared. Aladdin went out of the hall, and returning soon after into it, he found the window, as he wished it to be, like the others.
In the meantime, the jewellers and goldsmiths reached the palace, and were introduced into the sultan’s presence, where the first jeweller, presenting the jewels which he had brought back, said, in the name of all the rest, “Sir, your majesty knows how long we have been upon the work you were pleased to set us about, in which we used all imaginable industry. It was far advanced, when Aladdin obliged us not only to leave off, but to undo what we had already begun, and bring your majesty your jewels back.” The sultan asked them if Aladdin gave them any reason for so doing, and they answering that he had given them none, he ordered a horse to be brought to him presently, which he mounted, and rode to Aladdin’s palace, with some few attendants on foot by his side. When he came there, he alighted at the staircase, which led up to the hall with the twenty-four windows, and went directly up to it, without giving previous notice to Aladdin; but it happened that at that very juncture Aladdin was opportunely there, and had just time to receive him at the door.
The sultan, without giving Aladdin time to complain obligingly of his not giving him notice, that he might have acquitted himself with the more duty and respect, said to him, “Son, I come myself to know the reason why you left so noble and magnificent a hall as this is imperfect.”