By Allah! there is no man in this land so churlish or so covetous as to begrudge to thirsty wayfarers a bunch of grapes out of his vineyard or figs or apricots from trees beside the road.

To go into the middle of the vineyard and pick fruit there would be wrong, but to gather from the edge is quite allowable.

If we were to come with sumpter-mules and load them with the grapes, that would be robbery; but who but the most miserly would blame us for picking for our own refreshment as we pass, any more than he would stop the needy from gleaning in the fields when corn is cut.

What your Honour thinks a crime, with us is reckoned as a kindness done and taken.' 'Aye,' said Suleyman, whose gift was for interpretations, 'and in the same way other matters which your Honour blames in us as faults are in reality but laudable and pious uses.

Thus, it is customary here among us to allow the servant to help himself a little to his master's plenty in so far as food and means of living are concerned.