Page:Chinese Merry Tales (1909).djvu/18

Chinese Merry Tales asked him the same question: "Brother, where do you go?" The idiot angrily replied: "I am not Ho Wan; you still want Ho Wan."

GENTLEMAN who had his hat torn to pieces by his wife, became very angry, and went to the palace to memorialize to the Throne. "Your minister's wife's temper is quite furious. Because I had a quarrel with her, she tore my silk hat to pieces. Pray, Your Majesty, have her punished." The Emperor immediately gave him a verbal reply: "My subject, you should hold your temper a little. You do not know that the Empress also has a little temper. Yesterday, because there was one word in which she disagreed with me, she tore my crown to pieces, and I did not dare to be angry. While yours, only a silk hat, of what value is it?"

HERE was a debtor whose creditor frequently asked him to pay his debts, but he would not pay what was due. The creditor became enraged and told his servants: "You go to the debtor's door and await there secretly. When he leaves his home, you seize and carry him to me. If he does not pay his debts, I will not let him go." When the servants received their master's order, they went every day and hid themselves near the entrance of the debtor's house. One day the debtor happened to go out, and the servants seized and carried him away. After travelling half a day, they were all exhausted, and proposed to find a place to rest themselves. The debtor said to the carriers: "Better run quick, do not stop; if you delay, another creditor may come and carry me away, then it would not be my fault."