I was bought by an old man of great wealth and of still greater learning, who was so taken with my proficiency in Arabic and in writing that he resolved to make of me a pupil instead of a servant to carry his coffee and pipe, or a slave to bear the heavier burden of his vices.
Nothing better could have happened to me.

I was installed in his house and treated with exemplary kindness, though he kept me rigorously at work with my books.

I need not tell you that with such a master I made fair progress, and that at the age of twenty-one I was, for a Turk, a young man of remarkably good education.

Then my master died suddenly, and I was thrown into great distress.

I was of course nothing but a slave, and liable to be sold at any time.