Next week Khoja Effendi went again to the barber’s.

When his head had been shaved he looked in the mirror as before; but he put nothing on it.

As he rose to depart, the barber stopped him, saying, “Most worshipful Effendi, you have forgotten to pay.”

“My head is now half bald,” said the Khoja; “will not one penny do for two shavings?”

Tale 12.—­The Khoja a Cadi.

The late Khoja Effendi when he filled the office of Cadi had some puzzling cases to decide.

One day two men came before him, and one of them said, “This fellow has bitten my ear, O Cadi!”

“No, no, most learned Cadi!” said the other; “that is not true.  He bit his own ear, and now tries to lay the blame upon me.”

“One cannot bite his own ear,” said the first man; “wherefore the lies of this scoundrel are obvious.”

“Begone, both of you,” said the Khoja; “but come back to-morrow, when I will give judgment.”

When the men had gone, the Khoja withdrew to a quiet place, where he would be undisturbed, that he might try if he could bite his own ear.  Taking the ear in his fingers, he made many efforts to seize it with his teeth, crying, “Can I bite it?”

But in the vehemence of his efforts the Khoja lost his balance and fell backwards, wounding his head.

The following day he took his seat with his head bound up in a linen cloth, and the men coming before him related their dispute as before, and cried, “Now, is it possible, O Cadi?”

“O, you fellows!” said the Khoja, “biting is easy enough, and you can fall and break your own head into the bargain.”

Tale 13.—­The Khoja’s Quilt.

One night after Khoja Nasr-ed-Deen had retired to rest he was disturbed by a man making a great noise before his door in the street outside.

“O wife!” said he, “get up, I pray you, and light a candle, that I may discover what this noise in the street is about.”

“Lie still, man,” said his wife.  “What have we to do with street brawlers?  Keep quiet and go to sleep.”

But the Khoja would not listen to her advice, and taking the bed-quilt, he threw it round his shoulders, and went out to see what was the matter.

Then the rascal who was making the disturbance, seeing a fine quilt floating from the Khoja’s shoulders, came behind him and snatched it away, and ran off with it.

After a while the Khoja felt thoroughly chilled, and he went back to bed.

“Well, Effendi,” said his wife:  “what have you discovered?”

“We were more concerned in the noise than you thought,” said the Khoja.

“What was it about, O Khoja?” asked his wife.

“It must have been about our quilt,” he replied; “for when the man got that he went off quietly enough.”

Tale 14.—­The Khoja and the Beggar.

One day whilst Nasr-ed-Deen Effendi was in his house, a man knocked at the door.