the khalif, “the first saying is:  When thy garment grows old, sew not a new patch on it, for it hath an ill look.”  “O woe!” cried the poet, “one hundred dinars are lost!” Mansur smiled, and proceeded:  “The second saying is:  When thou anointest thy beard, anoint not the lower part, for that would soil the collar of thy vest.”  “Alas!” exclaimed Thalebi, “a thousand times, alas! two hundred dinars are lost!” Again the khalif smiled, and continued:  “The third saying”—­but before he had spoken it, the poet said:  “O khalif of our prosperity, keep the third maxim in thy treasury, and give me the remaining hundred dinars, for they will be worth a thousand times more to me than the hearing of maxims.”  At this the khalif laughed heartily, and commanded his treasurer to give Thalebi five hundred dinars of gold.

A droll story is told of the Persian poet Anwari:  Passing the market-place of Balkh one day, he saw a crowd of people standing in a ring, and going up, he put his head within the circle and found a fellow reciting the poems of Anwari himself as his own.  Anwari went up to the man, and said:  “Sir, whose poems are these you are reciting?” He replied:  “They are Anwari’s.”  “Do you know him, then?” said Anwari.  The man, with cool effrontery, answered:  “What do you say?  I am Anwari.”  On hearing this Anwari laughed, and remarked:  “I have heard of one who stole poetry, but never of one who stole the poet himself!”—­Talking of “stealing poetry,” Jami tells us that a man once brought a composition to a critic, every line of which he had plagiarised from different collections of poems, and each rhetorical figure from various authors.  Quoth the critic:  “For a wonder, thou hast brought a line of camels; but if the string were untied, every one of the herd would run away in different directions.”

There is no little humour in the story of the Persian poet who wrote a eulogium on a rich man, but got nothing for his trouble; he then abused the rich man, but he said nothing; he next seated himself at the rich man’s gate, who said to him:  “You praised me, and I said nothing; you abused me, and I said nothing; and now, why are you sitting here?” The poet answered:  “I only wish that when you die I may perform the funeral service.”

V

UNLUCKY OMENS—­THE OLD MAN’S PRAYER—­THE OLD WOMAN IN THE MOSQUE—­THE
WEEPING TURKMANS—­THE TEN FOOLISH PEASANTS—­THE WAKEFUL SERVANT—­THE
THREE DERVISHES—­THE OIL-MAN’S PARROT—­THE MOGHUL AND HIS PARROT—­THE
PERSIAN SHOPKEEPER AND THE PRIME MINISTER—­HEBREW FACETIAE.