The day was nearly over when we descended, the cypresses of Brusa cast long shadows between the white domes--it was the magic moment when the sun, like a second Midas, turns all he touches into gold. The western sky was a sheet of pure gold, the broad plane-leaves hung in golden patterns upon the boughs, the low light lay in a carpet of gold upon the grass, the very air breathed incantations, and on the lowest slope of the mountain we found Ganymede awaiting us. There he sat under a tree by the roadside; he had clothed himself in the semblance of an old Turkish beggar, and hidden his yellow curls beneath a scarlet fez, and the nectar he offered us was only Turkish coffee; but we knew him, in spite of his disguise, when he put one of the tiny cups into our hands, for no coffee brewed by mortal could have tasted so ambrosial or mingled so divine a fragrance with the sweet flowery smell of evening. We sat down on the grass round the primitive brazier--a mere dishful of charcoal set on a shaky iron tripod. The heavenly cup-bearer was well versed in the arts of coffee-making; he kept half a dozen of his little copper pots a-boiling on the tray of charcoal, which he blew to a red glow round them, and when the coffee frothed up over the edges, he poured it in the nick of time into the cups which we held out to him. The sun flooded our Olympian hall of plane-trees with soft light; we lay in grateful silence upon our couch of grass while the coffee bubbled up over the charcoal fire and frothed steaming into our cups. At length we rose, handed our Ganymede some Turkish coins, at which he must have chuckled in his Greek heart, and rode away in the twilight through the streets of Brusa.
‘WE lived together for the space of a month,’ related the second of the three ladies of Baghdad to Haroun al Rashid, Ja’far the Wezir, and Mesroor the Executioner, ‘after which I begged my husband that he would allow me to go to the bazaar to purchase some stuffs for dress.’ She went, accompanied by the inevitable old woman, to the house of a young merchant whose father had recently died, leaving him great wealth. ‘He produced all we wanted, and we handed him the money, but he refused to take it, saying: “It is an offer of hospitality for your visit.” I said: “If he will not take the money, I will return to him the stuffs.” But he would not receive it again, and exclaimed: “By Allah! I will take nothing from you; all this is a present from me for a single kiss, which I will value more than the contents of my whole shop.”’ The Khalifeh, when the story was concluded--it went on through many and surprising adventures--expressed no astonishment at the young man’s generosity. Such an exaggerated view of hospitality seemed to him quite natural on the part of a shopkeeper, nor did he pause to inquire whether the inflammable young man found that the wealth which his father had left him increased with any rapidity through his transactions with pretty ladies.