Al Ḥârith, accompanied by some official writers, is in a boat on the Euphrates; the party being engaged in an inspection of the land for the purpose of fixing the taxation. They meet with a person in shabby garb, whom they treat with much lack of courtesy; until the conversation falling on the comparative merits of secretaries and accountants, the stranger, who is Abû Zayd, shows his eloquence by a rhetorical address on the subject. They then seek to conciliate him; but he quits them in anger, after re­citing some verses on the folly and injustice of judging by appearances. This difficult Assembly exhibits a species of composi­tion much in favour among the Arabs, in which the poet or orator first praises and then blames, or first exalts the one of two rivals and then the other. Compare the Third Assembly, in which a gold denar is thus treated; and the addresses of Sheddâd and Sahil ibn Hârûn, on gold and glass, Ar. Prov. II. p. 780. The speech of Abû Zayd on the two orders of scribes is, throughout, an elaborate display of paronomasia.

Al Ḥârith, son of Hammâm, related: I betook my­self, during a time of quiet, to the water-lands of the Euphrates;—And there I met with scribes, more ex­cellent than the sons of Al Furât, more pleasant in manners than the sweet waters.—And I joined myself to them for their culture, not for their gold, and I com­panied with them for their scholarship, not for their ban­quets.—And among them I sat with equals of Al Ḳa‘ḳâ‘, son of Showr, and with them I attained to plenty after want.—Until they made me sharer in food and dwelling, and set me above themselves, as the finger-top is above the finger:—And they took me as the son of their in­timacy in time of office and of leisure, and the treasurer of their secret in earnest and jest.—Now it happened on a certain time that they were called to visit in their order the corn lands of the villages:—Then they chose of the lofty-sailed boats one black, of unmixed hue:— Thou wouldst think it immovable, yet it fleeted as fleet the clouds and glided on the deep as a serpent.—Then they called me to consenting, and invited me to com­panying.—And when we had mounted our sable beast, and set ourselves in our cushion-saddle that moved on the water,—We found there an old man, on whom was a thread-bare coat and a worn turban.—Then the company loathed his presence, and found fault with whoever had brought him; and would have purposed to put him forth of the ship, but that their calmness re­turned to them.—And when he spied that we deemed his shadow to be heavy, and his shower cold, he assayed to converse, but was silenced, and he praised God after sneezing, but no one blessed him.—Then was he speech­less, looking at the pass he had reached, and waiting for the help which comes to the wronged.—And we, we roamed through the bye-paths of the serious and the gay;—Until there occurred a mention of the two kinds of official writing, and their excellence, and a distin­guishing of the more excellent.—And one said that the scribes of Composition were the noblest of scribes, while another leaned to the preferring of Accountants:—And the arguing grew sharp, and the dispute grew long.— Until, when there remained no longer an arena for the contention, or a field for the debate,—Said the old man: My friends, ye have made much clamour, and adduced the true and the mistaken.—But the clear decision rests with me, so be content with my coin, and consult no one after me.—Know that the art of Composition is the more lofty, though the art of Account may be the more useful. —The pen of correspondence is a choice orator, but the pen of account-keeping picks up phrases carelessly:— And the fablings of eloquence are copied to be studied, but the ledgers of accounts are soon blotted out and razed.—And the Composer is the Johayneh for inform­ation, and the post-bag of secrets, and the confidant of the mighty, and great among guests.—And his pen is the tongue of sovereignty, and the knight of the skirmish; a Loḳmân of wisdom, and the interpreter of purpose: it carries glad news, and it warns, it is the intercessor and the envoy.—By it fortresses are won, and foes are vanquished, and the rebel is made obedient, and the distant is brought near;—And its master is free from suits, secure from the malice of accusers, praised in the assemblies, not exposed to the drawing up of registers.

Now when, in his judgment, he had arrived at this point, he saw from the glances of the company that he had sowed love and hatred, that he had pleased a part and angered a part.—So he followed up his discourse by saying: Not but that the art of Account is based on verification, and the art of Composing is founded on fabrication.—For the pen of the Accountant holds firm, but the pen of the Composer stumbles:—And between taking tribute by the impost on transactions and the reading of the leaves of volumes, is a difference to which comparison cannot apply, into which doubt cannot enter: —For tribute fills purses, but reading empties the head; and the tax of the memorandum-book enriches the over­seer, but the interpretation of rolls wearies the eye.— And then also the Accountants are the guardians of wealth, the bearers of burdens, the truthful relators, the ṭrustworthy envoys, the guides in doing justice and obtaining it, the sufficing witnesses in breach of contract. —And of their number is the Minister of Finance, who is the Hand of the Prince, the Pivot of the Council, the Balance of business, the overseer of the agents.—To him is the reference in peace and war; on him is the management in revenue and expenditure; by him hang evil and advantage; in his hand is the rein of giving and denying.—And were it not for the pen of Ac­countants the fruit of earning would perish, and fraud would endure to the Day of Judgment; the order of transactions would be loosened; the wound of wrongs would be unavenged; the neck of just-dealing would be fettered; the sword of wrong-dealing would be drawn.—Moreover, the pen of composition fables, but the pen of accounting interprets; the Accountant is a close scrutinizer; the Composer is an Abû Barâḳish; —Yet each, when he rises high, has his venom until he be met and charmed; and in what each produces there is vexing until he be visited and bribed: save those that believe and work righteousness—and how few are they!

Said Al Ḥârith, son of Hammâm: Now when he had thus supplied our hearings with what was pure and good, we asked him of his lineage; but he was suspicious, and shrank from telling it; and if he had found a place of escaping he would have escaped.— Then from his secrecy was I in sorrow; but after a time I recollected him,—And I said, “Now by Him who controls the rolling heaven and the voyaging ships, surely I catch the breeze of Abû Zayd, though once I knew him lord of comeliness and vigour.”—And he smiled, laughing at my speech, and said, “I am he, though with a change in state and strength.”—Where­upon I said to my companions, “This is he, after whose fashioning none can fashion, whose sprite is not to be vied with.”—Then they courted his friendship, and offered him wealth; but he declined from intimacy, and leaned not to the gift.—And he said, “Since ye have hurt my honour on account of my worn garment, and cast a shadow on my soul for the threadbareness of my coat,—I will look upon you only with a heated eye; ye shall have from me only a ship’s companion­ship.—Then he recited:

Hear, my brother, commandment from a counsellor who mingles not the purity of his counsel with deceit:

Hasten not with a decisive judgment in the praise of him whom thou hast not tried, nor in the rebuke of him;

But stay thy judgment on him until thou hast had a view of his two characters in his two conditions of content and anger;

And until his deceiving flash be distinguished from his truthful one by those who watch it, and his flood from his light rain;

And then if thou perceive what dishonours him, hide it gene­rously; but if thou see what becomes him, publish it:

And whoso deserves to be exalted, exalt him; and whoso deserves abasement, abase him to the sewer.

Know that the pure gold in the vein of the earth is hidden until it is brought out by the digging:

And the worth of the denar, its secret appears by scratching it, and not from the beauty of the graving.

It is folly that thou shouldst magnify the ignorant by reason of the brightness of his dress or the splendour of his adorning;

Or that thou shouldst make little of the man who is refined in soul on account of the threadbareness of his garb, or the shabbiness of his furniture.

For how many an owner of two torn mantles is reverenced for his worth, and he that is striped in his garments has ill-fame through his baseness.

For when a man approaches not to infamy, then are his rags only the steps to his throne.

It hurts not the sword that its sheath be worn, nor the hawk that its nest be mean.

Then he delayed not to bid the sailors stop, and he ascended from the boat and made off.—But each of us repented in that he had been incautious towards him, and drooped his eyelid over his mote,—And we vowed that we would never slight a man for the raggedness of his garment; that we would not despise the sword while hidden in the sheath.