Khalifah The Fisherman of Baghdad.
There was once, in days of yore and in ages and times long gone before, in the city of Baghdad, a fisherman, by name Khalíf, a man of muckle talk and little luck. One day, as he sat in his cell,[FN#263] he bethought himself and said, "There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great! Would Heaven I knew what is my offence in the sight of my Lord and what caused the blackness of my fortune and my littleness of luck among the fishermen, albeit (and I say it who should not) in the city of Baghdad there is never a fisherman like myself." Now he lodged in a ruined place called a Khan, to wit, an inn,[FN#264] without a door, and when he went forth to fish, he would shoulder the net, without basket or fish-slicers,[FN#265] and wh
