a horse.  The curate replies with great politeness, “The request with which you honour me is a mere trifle, but the rector took it out with him a few days since, and coming to the junction of four cross roads, a gust of wind blew the ribs to one side and the skin to another, and we have tied them together, and hung them from the ceiling; so I fear it would not suit your purpose.”  “It is a horse I want,” said the man.  “Precisely—­a horse:  I am aware of it,” quoth the curate, and the man went off, not a little perplexed, after which the curate reports this new affair to the rector, who says it was to an umbrella, not to a horse, that such a story was applicable.  Should any one come again to borrow a horse, he ought to say, “I much regret that I cannot comply with your request.  The fact is, we lately turned him out to grass, and becoming frolicsome, he dislocated his thigh, and is now lying, covered with straw, in a corner of the stable.”  “Something like that,” adds the rector, “something with an air of truth about it, is what you should say.”  A third parishioner comes to invite the rector and the curate to a feast at his house.  “For myself,” says the curate, “I promise to come; but I fear it will not be convenient for the rector to accompany me.”  “I presume then,” says the man, “that he has some particular business on hand?” “No, not any particular business,” answers the curate; “but the truth is, we lately turned him out to grass, and becoming frisky, he dislocated his thigh, and now lies in a corner of the stable, covered with straw.”  “I spoke of the rector,” says the parishioner.  “Yes, of the rector.  I quite understand,” responds the curate, very complaisantly, upon which the man goes away, not knowing what to make of such a strange account of the rector’s condition.  This last affair puts the rector into a fury, and he cuffs his intended successor, exclaiming, “When was I ever frisky, I should like to know?”

As great a jolterhead as any of the foregoing was the hero of a story in Cazotte’s “Continuation” of the Arabian Nights, entitled “L’Imbecille; ou, L’Histoire de Xailoun,"[3] This noodle’s wife said to him one day, “Go and buy some pease, and don’t forget that it is pease you are to buy; continually repeat ‘Pease!’ till you reach the market-place.”  So he went off, with “Pease! pease!” always in his mouth.  He passed the corner of a street where a merchant who had pearls for sale was proclaiming his wares in a loud voice, saying, “In the name of the Prophet, pearls!” Xailoun’s attention was at once attracted by the display of pearls, and at the same time he was occupied in retaining the lesson his wife had taught him, and putting his hand in the box of pearls, he cried out, “Pease! pease!” The merchant, supposing Xailoun played upon him and depreciated his pearls by wishing to make them pass for false ones, struck him a severe blow.  “Why do you strike me?” said Xailoun.  “Because you insult me,” answered the merchant.  “Do