Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/384

 364 Ca Irene Folklore.

me : If the sultan grants you a favour, what will you give me ? I answered, I would give a quarter. Each of the porters asked the same question and I made the same reply : ' I will give you a quarter.' So if your honour wishes to give me anything, each will take a quarter, and I shall have nothing. Now each has taken a quarter and I have had nothing.' The sultan laughs greatly ; he was pleased with the fellow and gave him plenty of bakshish. So he went back to his house and was happy. He had a neighbour, a woman ; when she saw that he had received plenty of bakshish, she said to her husband : ' Come, I will prepare two cocks, and do you give them to the king in order that he may give you plenty of money as he has done to our neighbour.' He replied : ' Very well ! ' She prepared for him four cocks and a little bread, and he took the meat and the bread and went to the palace. As soon as the porter saw him, he said nothing for fear ; so the fellow passed from the first gate to the last. He found the sultan, and the vizier, and the children, sitting, and made obeisance. The sultan asked : ' What have you got, good sir ? ' He answered : ' I have a present for you.' The sultan asked : ' What is the present ? ' He answered : ' Food.' The sultan said : * Very well, I have not yet eaten.' He put the food in the middle of them, and they sat down to eat. The sultan said to him : ' Set on ! ' The fellow gave a cock to each. The sultan said : ' Good sir, why is there nothing for yourself ? ' He replied : ' The wise man eats of the sauce.' The vizier said to the sultan : * This fellow is a fool : he makes us fools and himself the wise man.' The sultan grew angry with the man and said : ' He must be beaten well.' Then they beat him and turned him out of the palace." ^

' Kan fi wahid ragil, 'ando elf 'irsh, lakin khayif yi'mil tagir 'alashan '1-felus beta'o ; ba'den yeruh ; mush 'aiizyiddi linnas et-tani 'alashan yigi nasim Fi wahid sitt garhum kallim 'mrato : " ahsan tishteru katakit 'alashan ba'dt; shwoyya yigi ferakh ; tibi'u '1-farkha be'etnen 'irsh unuss wala telata 'irsh,