“I will go with you and be your apprentice,” said Selim Pasha the Proud, Prince of Orient Land, “but wait until I get a bundle of clothes, and tell the head-cook not to expect me for dinner, and ask the Lord Chamberlain to feed my white mouse and my bird of Paradise until I come back!”
That same day they mounted camels and set out on their long journey across the desert. They passed the castle of Bulbo, but the rivers that surrounded it were so wide and the ramparts of yellow sand so high that Selim Pasha could not see over them, though he stood on tip-toe on his camel’s hump. Sadly he rode by and followed the old glass-maker to his city, many hundreds of miles away.
When they reached the city, the old man led him to a dingy little house made of bricks and mud. It was very dark inside, for there were no windows.
“Stand very still, my lad, till I light the lamp, or you will break some precious glass!” said the old man. Then he struck a light, and Selim Pasha beheld a most wonderful sight. All about him were vases and bowls and cups of iridescent glass standing on shelves of crystal, and there were delicate flowers made of glass and glittering prisms that caught the lamplight and threw back a thousand brilliant hues.
“Here you shall work for seven years,” said the old man, “and I will teach you how to make all these things, but you will have to sleep on a mat upon the floor, and eat from the bowl after I have eaten, because you are an apprentice.”
“I will do as you say,” replied Selim Pasha the Proud.
So the Prince of Orient Land made glass for seven years, and slept on a mat upon the floor, and ate from the bowl after his master had eaten. When the seven years were over, his master said to him:
“Selim Pasha, I have taught you all there is to know about glass-making; now make me a bowl of rainbow-colored glass, so large that a man can sit within it; so bright that no one can see through the glass because of its beautiful colors; and so light that the littlest breeze may carry it away.”
“And when I have made the bowl,” said the prince, “shall I then have my reward?”
“When you have made the bowl, we will talk about your reward.”
So Selim Pasha sat up three days and three nights with the glass-blower’s lamps between his knees, and the glass-blower’s rod in his mouth. Finally he made a bowl so large that he himself could hide within it, so bright that no one could see through it because of its beautiful colors and so light that the littlest breeze could carry it away. Then he noticed that the edge of the glass was not smooth, so he dipped his finger in water and ran it around and around.