After
searching all the rooms and finding no person, he entered their
apartment, and inquired the meaning of what he saw. Neither of them
would condescend to reply. The officer became angry, and ordered their
heads to be cut off. The executioner's sword was about to perform its
office, when the wife cried out, "Sir, he is my husband. Do not kill
him!" "Oh, oh," exclaimed the husband, overjoyed and clapping his hands,
"you have lost the wager; go and shut the door." He then explained the
whole affair to the police officer, who shrugged his shoulders and went
away.[6]
A party of noodles are substituted for the husband and wife in a Turkish
version of the tale, in the _History of the Forty Vazirs. _ Some
bang-eaters,[7] while out walking, found a sequin. They said, "Let us go
to a cook, and buy food and eat." So they went and entered a cook's shop
and said, "Master, give us a sequin's worth of food." The cook prepared
all kinds of food, and loaded a porter with it; and the bang-eaters took
him without the city, where there was a ruined tomb, which they entered
and sat down in, and the porter deposited the food and went away. The
bang-eaters began to partake of the food, when suddenly one of them
said, "The door is open; do one of you shut it, else some other
bang-eaters will come in and annoy us: even though they be friends, they
will do the deeds of foes.
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