the ground, beaten me, and plucked my beard and hair!” and told of his new mishap.  “Ah, noodle!” said his mother, “thou shouldst have said, ‘God give peace to his soul!’ Thou shouldst have taken off thy bonnet, wept, and fallen upon thy knees.  They would then have given thee meat and drink.”  Again he went to the village, and met a marriage procession.  So he took off his bonnet, and cried with all his might, “God grant peace to his soul!” and then burst into tears.  “What brute is this?” said the wedding company.  “We laugh and amuse ourselves, and he laments as if he were at a funeral.”  So they leaped out of the carriages, and beat him soundly on the ribs.  Home he returned, crying, “They’ve beaten me, thrashed me, and torn my beard and hair!” and related what had happened.  “My son,” said his mother, “thou shouldst have leaped and danced with them.”  The next time he went to the village he took his bagpipe under his arm.  At the end of the street a cart-shed was on fire.  The noodle ran to the spot, and began to play on his bagpipe and to dance and caper about, for which he was abused as before.  Going back to his mother in tears, he told her how he had fared.  “My son,” said she, “thou shouldst have carried water and thrown it on the fire, like the other folks.”  Three days later, when his ribs were well again, the noodle went through the village once more, and seeing a man roasting a little pig, he seized a vessel of water, ran up with it, and threw the water on the fire.  This time also he was beaten, and when he got home, and told his mother of his ill-luck, she resolved never again to allow him to go abroad; so he remains by the fireside, as great a fool as ever.

This species of noodle is also known in Japan.  He is the hero of a farce entitled Hone Kaha, or Ribs and Skin, which has been done into English by Mr. Basil Hall Chamberlain, in his Classical Poetry of the Japanese.  The rector of a Buddhist temple tells his curate that he feels he is now getting too old for the duties of his office, and means to resign the benefice in his favour.  Before retiring to his private chamber, he desires the curate to let him know if any persons visit the temple, and bids him, should he be in want of information regarding any matter, to come to him.  A parishioner calls to borrow an umbrella.  The curate lends him a new one, and then goes to the rector and informs him of this visitor.  “You have done wrong,” says the rector.  “You ought to have said that you should have been happy to comply with such a small request, but, unfortunately, the rector was walking out with it the other day, when, at a place where four roads meet, a sudden gust of wind blew the skin to one side and the ribs to another; we have tied the ribs and skin together in the middle, and hung it from the ceiling.  Something like that,” adds the rector, “something with an air of truth about it, is what you should have said.”  Next comes another parishioner, who wishes to borrow