he returned to his house, making the boys follow him there, and told his wife that he was not well, bidding her mark how pale he was.  His wife assured him he was not looking pale, and offered to convince him by bringing a mirror, but he refused to look at it, and took to his bed.  He then ordered the boys to begin their lessons; but they assured him that the noise made his head ache, and he believed them, and dismissed them to their homes, to the annoyance of their mothers.

Another example of juvenile cleverness is found in a Persian collection of anecdotes entitled “Lata’yif At-Taw’ayif,” by ’Ali ibn Husain Al-Va’iz Al-Kashifi:  One day Nurshirvan saw in a dream that he was drinking with a frog out of the same cup.  When he awoke he told this dream to his vazir, but he knew not the interpretation of it.  The king grew angry and said, “How long have I maintained thee, that if any difficulty should arise thou mightest unloose the knot of it, and if any matter weighed on my heart thou shouldst lighten it?  Now I give thee three days, that thou mayest find out the meaning of this dream, and remove the trouble of my mind; and if, within that space, thou art not successful, I will kill thee.”  The vazir went from the presence of Nurshirvan confounded and much in trouble.  He gathered together all the sages and interpreters of dreams, and told the matter to them, but they were unable to explain it; and the vazir resigned his soul to death.  But this story was told in the city, and on the third day he heard that there was a mountain, ten farsangs distant from the city, in which was a cave, and in this cave a sage who had chosen the path of seclusion, and lived apart from mankind, and had turned his face to the wall.  The vazir set out for this place of retirement, saying to himself, “Perhaps he will be able to lay a plaster on my wound, and relieve it from the throbbings of care.”  So he mounted his horse, and went to find the sage.  At the moment he arrived at the hill a company of boys were playing together.  One of them cried out with a loud voice, “The vazir is running everywhere in search of an interpreter, and all avails him nothing; now the interpretation of the dream is with me, and the truth of it is clear to me.”  When these words reached the ears of the vazir he drew in the reins, and calling the boy to him asked him, “What is thy name?  He replied, “Buzurjmibr.”  The vazir said “All the sages and interpreters have failed in loosing the knot of this difficulty—­how dost thou, so young in years, pretend to be able to do it?  He replied, “All the world is not given to every one.”  The vazir said, “If thou speakest truth, explain.”  Said the boy “Take me to the monarch, that I may there unloose the knot of this difficulty.”  The vazir said, “If thou shouldst fail, what then will come of it?” The boy replied, “I will give up my own blood to the king, that they may slay me instead of thee.”  The vazir took the boy with him, returned, and told the whole matter