The merchant’s arguments appeared unanswerable; so I yielded to them, and delivered to him my wife, whom he placed on one of his best oxen, and continued his journey without delay.  I continued mine also, and got home in the evening, exhausted with hunger and fatigue, and with my feet almost roasted with the burning sand, over which I had walked the greater part of the day.  Frightened to see me alone, “Where is your wife?” cried my mother.  I gave her a full account of everything that had happened from the time I left her.  I spoke of the agreeable and courteous manner in which my father-in-law had received me, and how, by some delay, we had been overtaken by the scorching heat of the sun at noon, so that my wife must have perished and myself suspected of having caused her death, had we proceeded; and that I had preferred to sell her to a merchant who met us for twenty pagodas.  And I showed my mother the money.

When I had done, my mother fell into an ecstasy of fury.  She lifted up her voice against me with cries of rage, and overwhelmed me with imprecations and awful curses.  Having given way to these first emotions of despair, she sank into a more moderate tone:  “What hast thou done!  Sold thy wife, hast thou!  Delivered her to another man!  A Brahmanari is become the concubine of a vile merchant!  Ah, what will her kindred and ours say when they hear the tale of this brutish stupidity—­of folly so unexampled and degrading?”

The relations of my wife were soon informed of the sad adventure that had befallen their unhappy girl.  They came over to attack me, and would certainly have murdered me and my innocent mother, if we had not both made a sudden escape.  Having no direct object to wreak their vengeance upon, they brought the matter before the chiefs of the caste, who unanimously fined me in two hundred pagodas, as a reparation to my father-in-law, and issued a proclamation against so great a fool being ever allowed to take another wife; denouncing the penalty of expulsion from the caste against any one who should assist me in such an attempt.  I was therefore condemned to remain a widower all my life, and to pay dear for my folly.  Indeed, I should have been excluded for ever from my caste, but for the high consideration in which the memory of my late father is still held, he having lived respected by all the world.

Now that you have heard one specimen of the many follies of my life, I hope you will not consider me as beneath those who have spoken before me, nor my pretensions altogether undeserving of the salutation of the soldier.

 Conclusion.

The heads of the assembly, several of whom were convulsed with laughter while the Brahmans were telling their stories, decided, after hearing them all, that each had given such absolute proofs of folly as to be entitled, in justice, to a superiority in his own way:  that each of them, therefore, should be at liberty to call himself the greatest fool of all, and to attribute to himself the salutation of the soldier.  Each of them having thus gained his suit, it was recommended to them all to continue their journey, if it were possible, in amity.  The delighted Brahmans then rushed out of court, each exclaiming that he had gained his cause.