Miscellanea Part 19

But the wise man replied: "It is for you to count, and to prove to me the truth of what you say."

"With all my heart," replied the Khoja. "And I will do it in a way that cannot possibly fail. I shall first pull out a hair from your beard, and then one from my donkey's tail, and then another from your beard, and so on. Thus at the end it will be seen whether the number of the hairs of each kind exactly correspond."

But the wise man did not wait for this method of proof to be enforced by the Sultan. He hastily announced himself as a convert to the Padisha's wishes. The other two Sages followed his example, and their wisdom was for many years the light of the court of the Sultan Ala-ed-Deen.

Moreover, they became disciples of the Khoja.

_Tale_ 5.--The Khoja's Donkey.

One day there came a man to the house of the Khoja to ask him for the loan of his donkey.

"The donkey is not at home," replied the Khoja, who was unwilling to lend his beast.

At this moment the donkey brayed loudly from within.

"O Khoja Effendi!" cried the man, "what you say cannot be true, for I can hear your donkey quite distinctly as I stand here."

"What a strange man you must be," said the Effendi. "Is it possible that you believe a donkey rather than me, who am grey-haired and a Khoja?"

_Tale_ 6.--The Khoja's Gown.

One day the Khoja's wife, having washed her husband's gown, hung it out in the garden to dry.

Now in the dusk of the evening the Khoja repaired to his garden, where he saw, as he believed, a thief standing with outstretched arms.

"O you rascal!" he cried, "is it you who steal my fruit? But you shall do so no more."

And having called to his wife for his bow and arrows, the Khoja took aim and pierced his gown through the middle. Then without waiting to see the result he hastened into his house, secured the door with much care, and retired to rest.

When morning dawned, the Khoja went out into the garden, where perceiving that what he had hit was his own gown, he seated himself and returned thanks to the All-merciful Disposer of Events.

"Truly," said he, "I have had a narrow escape. If I had been inside it, I should have been dead long before this!"

_Tale_ 7.--The Khoja and the Fast of Ramadan.

In a certain year, when the holy month of the fast of Ramadan was approaching, Khoja Nasr-ed-Deen took counsel with himself and resolved not to observe it.

"Truly," said he, "there is no necessity that I should fast like the common people. I will rather provide myself with a vase into which I will drop a stone every day. When there are thirty pebbles in the vase, I shall know that Ramadan is over, and I shall then be able to keep the feast of Bairam at the proper season."

Accordingly, on the first day of the month the Khoja dropped a stone into the vase, and so he continued to do day by day.

Now the Khoja had a little daughter, and it came to pa.s.s that one day the child, having observed the pebbles in the vase, went out and gathered a handful and added them to the rest. But her father was not aware of it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE KHOJA COUNTS.]

On the twenty-fifth day of Ramadan the Khoja met at the Bazaar with certain of his neighbours, who said to him, "Be good enough, most learned Khoja, to tell us what day of the month it is."

"Wait a bit, and I will see," replied the Khoja. Saying this, he ran to his house, emptied the vase, and began to count the stones. To his amazement he found that there were a hundred and twenty!

"If I say as much as this," thought the Khoja, "they will call me a fool. Even half would be more than could be believed."

So he went back to the Bazaar and said, "It is the full forty-fifth of the month, quite that."

"O Khoja!" the neighbours replied, "there are only thirty days in a complete month, and do you tell us to-day is the forty-fifth?"

"O neighbours!" answered the Khoja, "believe me, I speak with moderation. If you look into the vase, you will find that according to its account to-day is the one hundred and twentieth."

_Tale_ 8.--The Khoja and the Thief.

One day a thief got into the Khoja's house, and the Khoja watched him.

The thief poked here, there, and everywhere, and after collecting all that he could carry, he put the load on his back and went off.

The Khoja then came out, and hastily gathering up the few things which were left of his property, he put them on his own back, and hurried after the thief.

At last he arrived before the door of the thief's house, at which he knocked.

"What do you want?" said the thief.

"Why, we are moving into this house, aren't we?" said the Khoja. "I've brought the rest of the things."

_Tale_ 9.--The Bird of Prey and the Piece of Soap.

One day the Khoja went with his wife to wash clothes at the head of a spring.

They had placed the soap beside them on the ground, and were just about to begin, when a black bird of prey swooped suddenly down, and s.n.a.t.c.hing up the soap, flew away with it, believing it to be some kind of food.

"Run, Khoja, run!" cried the distracted wife. "Make haste, I beseech you, and catch that thief of a bird. He has carried off my soap."

"O wife!" replied the Khoja, "let him alone. He wants it more than we do, poor fellow! Our clothes are not half so black as what he has got on."

_Tale_ 10.--The Khoja and the Wolves.

"Wife!" said the Khoja one day, "how do you know when a man is dead?"

"When his hands and feet have become cold, Khoja," replied the good woman, "I know that it is all over then. The man is dead."

Some time afterwards the Khoja went to the mountain to cut wood. It was in the winter, and after he had worked for an hour or two his hands and feet became very cold.

"It is really a melancholy thing," said he; "but I fear that there can be no doubt that I am dead. If this is the case, however, I have no business to be on my feet, much less to be chopping firewood which I have not lived to require." So he went and lay down under a tree.

By and by came the wolves, and they fell upon the Khoja's donkey, and devoured it.