noon
`` And no cutting , '' exacted Corrie , _ sotto voce _ . `` Very well , then ; pray imagine yourselves in the bazaar , and remember this is n't my fault , '' Gerard submitted . He paused , assembling his recollections . `` On ascending the throne at Bagdad , in the full noon of the glory of the caliphs ; it is told that Al-Mamoun , the son of Haroun-al-Raschid , the great-grandson of Al-Mansor , received from the former vizier a small golden vase . '' ` Lord of the East , newly-risen Sun of the true believers , ' said the vizier , ` your great-grandfather of venerated memory caused to be made this vase , proposing to place therein a pearl for every day of perfect happiness he should pass . And when he received the vase from the goldsmith , he complained that the vase was too small . But , alas , the mighty Al-Mansor died without ever putting in a single pearl , for the day when the vase came home he learned that his loved sultana plotted against his life . ''