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you obtain that ferage?" The Khoja responded "As I was taking a walk with my friend Ahmed we saw a fellow lying drunk, whereupon I took off his ferage and went away with it. If it be yours, pray take it." "O no," said the governor, "it does

not belong to me."

Even being robbed could not disturb the Khoja's good humour. When he was lying in bed one night a loud noise was heard in the street before his house. Said he to his wife: "Get up and light a candle, and I will go and see what is the matter." "You had much better stay where you are," advised his wife. But the Khoja, without heeding her words, put the counterpane on his shoulders and went out. A fellow, on perceiving him, immediately snatched the counterpane from off the Khoja's shoulders and ran away. Shivering with cold, the Khoja returned into the house, and when his wife asked him the cause of the noise, he said: "It was on account of our counterpane; when they got that, the noise ceased at once."

But in the following story we have a very old acquaintance in a new dress: One day the Khoja's wife, in order to plague him, served up some exceedingly hot broth, and, forgetting what she had done, put a spoonful of it in her mouth, which so scalded her that the tears came into her eyes. "O wife," said the Khoja, "what is the matter with you—is the broth hot?" "Dear Efendi," said she, "my mother, who is now dead, loved broth very much;

I thought of that, and wept on her account." The Khoja, thinking that what she said was truth, took a spoonful of the broth, and, it burning his mouth, he began to bellow. "What is the matter with you?" Why do you cry?" Quoth the Khoja: "You cry because your mother is gone, but I cry because her daughter is here."1

said his wife.

Many of the Muslim jests, like some our of own, are at the expense of poor preachers. Thus there was in Baghdad a preacher whom no one attended after hearing him but once. One Friday when he came down from the pulpit he discovered that the only one who remained in the mosque was the muezzin— all his hearers had left him to finish his discourse as, and when, he pleased-and, still worse, his slippers had also disappeared. Accusing the muezzin of having stolen them, “I am rightly served by your

1 This is how the same story is told in our oldest English jestbook, entitled A Hundred Mery Talys (1525): A certain merchant and a courtier being upon a time at dinner, having a hot custard, the courtier, being somewhat homely of manner, took part of it and put it in his mouth, which was so hot that it made him shed tears. The merchant, looking on him, thought that he had been weeping, and asked him why he wept. This courtier, not willing it to be known that he had brent his mouth with the hot custard, answered and said, 66 Sir," quod he, "I had a brother which did a certain offence, wherefore he was hanged." The merchant thought the courtier had said true, and anon, after the merchant was disposed to eat of the custard, and put a spoonful of it into his mouth, and brent his mouth also, that his eyes watered. This courtier, that perceiving, spake to the merchant, and said, "Sir," quod he, "why do ye weep now?" The merchant perceived how he had been deceived, and said, " Marry," quod he, "I weep because thou wast not hanged when that thy brother was hanged.”

suspicion," retorted he, "for being the only one that remained to hear you." In Gladwin's Persian Moonshee we read that whenever a certain learned man preached in the mosque, one of the congregation wept constantly, and the preacher, observing this, concluded that his words made a great impression on the man's heart. One day some of the people said to the man: "That learned man makes no impression on our minds;-what kind of a heart have you, to be thus always in tears?" He answered: "I do not weep at his discourse, O Muslims. But I had a goat of which I was very fond, and when he grew old he died. Now, whenever the learned man speaks and wags his beard I am reminded of my goat, for he had just such a voice and beard." But they are not always represented as mere dullards; for example: A miserly old fellow once sent a Muslim preacher a gold ring without a stone, requesting him to put up a prayer for him from the pulpit. The holy man prayed that he should have in Paradise a golden palace without a roof. When he descended from the pulpit, the man

1

1 What may be an older form of this jest is found in the Kathá Manjari, a Canarese collection, where a wretched singer dwelling next door to a poor woman causes her to weep and wail bitterly whenever he begins to sing, and on his asking her why she wept, she explains that his "golden voice" recalled to her mind her donkey that died a month ago.—The story had found its way to our own country more than three centuries since. In Mery Tales and Quicke Answeres (1535), under the title "Of the Friar that brayde in his Sermon," the preacher reminds a "poure wydowe" of her ass-all that her husband had left her-which had been devoured by wolves, for so the ass was wont to bray day and night.

went to him, and, taking him by the hand, said: “O preacher, what manner of prayer is that thou hast made for me?" "If thy ring had had a stone," replied the preacher, "thy palace should also have had a roof."

Apropos of misers, our English facetiæ books furnish many examples of their ingenuity in excusing themselves from granting favours asked of them by their acquaintances; and, human nature being much the same everywhere, the misers in the East are represented as being equally adroit, as well as witty, in parrying such objectionable requests. A Persian who had a very miserly friend went to him one day, and said: “I am going on a journey; give me your ring, which I will constantly wear, and whenever I look on it, I shall remember you." The other answered: "If you wish to remember me, whenever you see your finger without my ring upon it, always think of me, that I did not give you my ring." And quite as good is the story of the dervish who said to the miser that he wanted something of him; to which he replied: "If you will consent to a request of mine, I will consent to whatever else you may require"; and when the dervish desired to know what it was, he said: "Never ask me for anything and whatever else you say I will perform."

II

THE TWO DEAF MEN AND THE TRAVELLER-THE DEAF PERSIAN AND THE HORSEMAN-LAZY SERVANTS-CHINESE HUMOUR: THE RICH MAN AND THE SMITHS; HOW TO KEEP PLANTS ALIVE; CRITICISING A PORTRAIT-THE PERSIAN COURTIER AND HIS OLD FRIEND-THE SCRIBE-THE SCHOOLMASTER AND THE WIT-THE PERSIAN AND HIS CAT-A LIST OF BLOCKHEADS-THE ARAB AND HIS CAMELA WITTY BAGHDADI-THE UNLUCKY SLIPPERS.

It is well known that deaf men generally dislike having their infirmity alluded to, and even endeavour to conceal it as much as possible. Charles Lamb, or some other noted wit, seeing a deaf acquaintance on the other side of the street one day while walking with a friend, stopped and motioned to him; then opened his mouth as if speaking in a loud tone, but saying not a word. "What are you bawling for?" demanded the deaf one. "D'ye think I can't hear?"-Two Eastern stories I have met with are most diverting examples of this peculiarity of deaf folks. One is related by my friend Pandit Natésa Sastrí in his Folk-Lore of Southern India, of which a few copies were recently issued at Bombay.1 A deaf man was sitting one day where three roads crossed, when a neatherd happened to pass that way. He had lately lost a good cow and a calf, and had been seeking them some days. When he saw the deaf man sitting by the way he took him

1 Messrs. W. H. Allen & Co., London, have in the press a new edition of this work, to be entitled "Tales of the Sun; or, Popular Tales of Southern India. I am confident that the collection will be highly appreciated by many English readers, while its value to story-comparers can hardly be over-rated.

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