Act I. _Nureddin_ is ill, very ill his servants say. They must know

very little of such youthful illnesses. _Margiana_ calls the invalid in a dream. _Margiana_ is the medicine that can cure him, _Margiana_, the marvellously glorious daughter of the mighty cadi, _Baba Mustapha_. And see how health reanimates _Nureddin's_ limbs, when _Bostana_, a relative of the cadi, approaches and brings the sweet news that _Margiana_ will wait for her lover about noon when her father has gone to prayers in the mosque. But the latter, in order to appear properly, needs above everything else a barber. And _Bostana_ appoints--"O knowest thou, revered one, I find for you a learned one--the greatest of all barbers, _Abdul Hassan Ali Ebn Bekar_. He is great as a barber, a giant as a talker, swift his razor, a thousand times quicker his tongue."