text:  This circumstance implying the presence of listeners might well endanger the necks of the daring representatives of the Caliph and his courtiers; but nevertheless without allowing themselves to be discomposed by the vicinity of spies the Moslems had played out their parts and the Caliph now rose from his ottoman with all the dignity of an eastern despot repeating as he did so to his attendants what great things he would do and how he would stitch with his own hands a twelfth under petticoat for the mother of the Prophet