In our next story, of the villagers who ate the buffalo, is exemplified the fact that “fools, in the conceit of their folly, while they deny what need not be denied, reveal what it is their interest to suppress, in order to get themselves believed.”  Some villagers took a buffalo belonging to a certain man, and killed it in an enclosure outside the village, under a banyan tree, and dividing the flesh, ate it up.  The owner of the buffalo went and complained to the king, and he had the villagers who had eaten the animal brought before him.  The proprietor of the buffalo said before the king, in their presence, “These men took my buffalo under a banyan tree near the tank, and killed and ate it before my eyes,” whereupon an old fool among the villagers said, “There is no tank or banyan tree in our village.  He says what is not true; where did we kill his buffalo or eat it?” When the man heard this, he replied, “What! are there not a banyan tree and a tank on the east side of the village?  Moreover, you ate my buffalo on the eighth day of the lunar month.”  The old fool then said, “There is no east side or eighth day in our village.”  On hearing this, the king laughed, and said, to encourage the fool, “You are a truthful person; you never say anything false; so tell me the truth:  did you eat that buffalo, or did you not?” The old fool answered, “I was born three years after my father died, and he taught me skill in speaking.  So I never say what is untrue, my king.  It is true that we ate his buffalo, but all the rest that he alleges is false.”  When the king heard this, he and his courtiers could not restrain their laughter; but he restored the price of the buffalo to the man, and fined the villagers.

But sometimes even kings have been arrant noodles, and their credulity quite as amusing—­or amazing—­as that of their subjects.  Once on a time there was a king who had a handsome daughter, and he summoned his physicians, and said to them, “Make some preparation of salutary drugs, which will cause my daughter to grow up quickly, so that she may be married to a good husband.”  The physicians, wishing to get a living out of this royal fool, replied, “There is a medicine which will do this, but it can only be procured in a distant country; and while we are sending for it, we must shut up your daughter in concealment, for this is the treatment laid down in such cases.”  The king having consented, they placed his daughter in concealment for several years, pretending that they were engaged in procuring the medicine; and when she was grown up, they presented her to the king, saying that she had been made to grow by the preparation; so the king was highly pleased, and gave them much wealth.