and brent his mouth also, that his eyes watered.  This
        courtier, that perceiving, spake to the merchant; and
        said, “Sir,” quod he, “why do ye weep now?” The merchant
        perceived how he had been deceived, and said, “Marry,”
        quod he, “I weep because thou wast not hanged when that
        thy brother was hanged.”

* * * * *

Many of the Muslim jests, like some our of own, are at the expense of poor preachers.  Thus:  there was in Baghdad a preacher whom no one attended after hearing him but once.  One Friday when he came down from the pulpit he discovered that the only one who remained in the mosque was the muezzin—­all his hearers had left him to finish his discourse as, and when, he pleased—­and, still worse, his slippers had also disappeared.  Accusing the muezzin of having stolen them, “I am rightly served by your suspicion,” retorted he, “for being the only one that remained to hear you.”—­In Gladwin’s Persian Moonshee we read that whenever a certain learned man preached in the mosque, one of the congregation wept constantly, and the preacher, observing this, concluded that his words made a great impression on the man’s heart.  One day some of the people said to the man:  “That learned man makes no impression on our minds;—­what kind of a heart have you, to be thus always in tears?” He answered:  “I do not weep at his discourse, O Muslims.  But I had a goat of which I was very fond, and when he grew old he died.  Now, whenever the learned man speaks and wags his beard I am reminded of my goat, for he had just such a voice and beard."[28] But they are not always represented as mere dullards; for example:  A miserly old fellow once sent a Muslim preacher a gold ring without a stone, requesting him to put up a prayer for him from the pulpit.  The holy man prayed that he should have in Paradise a golden palace without a roof.  When he descended from the pulpit, the man went to him, and, taking him by the hand, said:  “O preacher, what manner of prayer is that thou hast made for me?” “If thy ring had had a stone,” replied the preacher, “thy palace should also have had a roof.”

   [28] What may be an older form of this jest is found in the
        Katha Manjari, a Canarese collection, where a wretched
        singer dwelling next door to a poor woman causes her to
        weep and wail bitterly whenever he begins to sing, and
        on his asking her why she wept, she explains that his
        “golden voice” recalled to her mind her donkey that died
        a month ago.—­The story had found its way to our own
        country more than three centuries since.  In Mery Tales
        and Quicke Answeres (1535), under the title “Of the
        Friar that brayde in his Sermon,” the preacher reminds a
        “poure wydowe” of her ass—­all that her husband had left
        her—­which had been devoured by wolves, for so the ass
        was wont to bray day and night.