Cleverness — Page 7

IN Nicea, which is my native place, there once lived a little man, named Mouk. I remember him very well indeed, although I was but a youngster at the time, for I once received a good sound thrashing from my…

THERE was once a worthy tailor’s apprentice named Labakan, who was learning his trade from a clever master at Alexandria. No one could accuse the young man of being awkward in plying his needle, on the contrary he worked very…

MANY years ago, in a certain city in Germany, there lived an honest cobbler and his wife. The good man sat all day and mended boots and shoes; he made new ones too, if he could get a customer to…

THIS is the story of Abner, the Jew, who by reason of his great powers of observation, instead of benefiting himself by his sagacity, brought himself into dire straits and well-nigh lost his life. It is well known that all…

IN Upper Suabia stands to this very day the ruins of a castle that was once the most stately in the whole neighbourhood, namely, that of Hohenzollern. It is built upon the summit of a steep hill, from the rugged…

CHAPTER I CHASID, Caliph of Bagdad, was taking his ease one beautiful afternoon, stretched out upon his couch. He had just awakened from a little nap and was in a pleasant mood. From time to time he drank from the…

IN the sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the…

NOW this is the next tale, and it tells how the Camel got his big hump. In the beginning of years, when the world was so new and all, and the Animals were just beginning to work for Man, there…

ONCE upon a time, on an uninhabited island on the shores of the Red Sea, there lived a Parsee from whose hat the rays of the sun were reflected in more-than-oriental splendour. And the Parsee lived by the Red Sea…

IN the days when everybody started fair, Best Beloved, the Leopard lived in a place called the High Veldt. ‘Member it wasn’t the Low Veldt, or the Bush Veldt, or the Sour Veldt, but the ‘sclusively bare, hot, shiny High…

IN the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn’t pick up…

THIS, O Best Beloved, is another story of the High and Far-Off Times. In the very middle of those times was a Stickly-Prickly Hedgehog, and he lived on the banks of the turbid Amazon, eating shelly snails and things. And…

ONCE upon a most early time was a Neolithic man. He was not a Jute or an Angle, or even a Dravidian, which he might well have been, Best Beloved, but never mind why. He was a Primitive, and he…

THE week after Taffimai Metallumai (we will still call her Taffy, Best Beloved) made that little mistake about her Daddy’s spear and the Stranger-man and the picture-letter and all, she went carp-fishing again with her Daddy. Her Mummy wanted her…

HEAR and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the…

THIS, O my Best Beloved, is a story—a new and a wonderful story—a story quite different from the other stories—a story about The Most Wise Sovereign Suleiman-bin-Daoud—Solomon the Son of David. There are three hundred and fifty-five stories about Suleiman-bin-Daoud;…

The Hares were so persecuted by the other beasts, they did not know where to go. As soon as they saw a single animal approach them, off they used to run. One day they saw a troop of wild Horses…

One hot summer’s day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. “Just the thing to quench my thirst,” quoth…