Early the next morning the magician called again for Aladdin, and said
he would take him to spend that day in the country, and on the next he
would purchase the shop. He then led him out at one of the gates of
the city, to some magnificent palaces, to each of which belonged
beautiful gardens, into which anybody might enter. At every building
he came to he asked Aladdin if he did not think it fine; and the youth
was ready to answer, when any one presented itself, crying out, "Here
is a finer house, uncle, than any we have yet seen."
By this artifice the cunning magician led Aladdin some way into the
country; and as he meant to carry him farther, to execute his design,
pretending to be tired, he took an opportunity to sit down in one of
the gardens, on the brink of a fountain of clear water which
discharged itself by a lion's mouth of bronze into a basin.
"Come, nephew," said he, "you must be weary as well as I. Let us rest
ourselves, and we shall be better able to pursue our walk."
The magician next pulled from his girdle a handkerchief with cakes and
fruit, and during this short repast he exhorted his nephew to leave
off bad company, and to seek that of wise and prudent men, to improve
by their conversation. "For," said he, "you will soon be at man's
estate, and you cannot too early begin to imitate their example."
When they had eaten as much as they liked, they got up, and pursued
their walk through gardens separated from one another only by small
ditches, which marked out the limits without interrupting the
communication; so great was the confidence the inhabitants reposed in
each other.
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