Page:Old Deccan Days.djvu/248

 204 said the brother, 'but next time he asks you the question, answer, "Yes, there are many men in the world more clever than you." The Pearlshooter's wife promised to take her brother's advice. So next time her husband shot the pearl from her nose-ring, and said to her, 'Was there ever a man as clever as I am?' she answered, 'Yes, there are many men in the world more clever than you.' Then he said, 'If so be that there are, I will not rest until I have found them.'

And he left her, and went a far journey into the jungle, in order to find, if possible, a cleverer man than himself.

On, on, on he journeyed a very long way, until at last he came to a large river, and on the river-bank sat a traveller eating his dinner. The Pearlshooter sat down beside him, and the two began conversing together. At last the Pearlshooter said to his friend, 'What is the reason of your journey, and where are you going?' The stranger answered, 'I am a Wrestler, and the strongest man in all this country; I can do many wonderful things in the way of wrestling and carrying heavy weights, and I began to think that in all this world there was no one so clever as I; but I have lately heard of a still more wonderful man who lives in a distant country, and who is so clever that every morning he shoots one of the pearls from his wife's nose-ring without hurting her. So I go to find him, and learn if this is true.' The Pearlshooter answered, 'Then you need travel no further, for I am that man of whom you heard.'—'Why are you travelling about, and where are you going?' asked the Wrestler. 'I,' replied the other, 'am also travelling to see if in all the world I can find a cleverer man than myself; therefore, as we have both the same object in view, let us be as brothers, and go about together; perhaps there is still in the world a better man than we.'

The Wrestler agreed; so they both started on their way together.

They had not gone very far before they came to a place where three roads met, and there sat another man whom neither of them had ever seen before. He accosted the Wrestler and the Pearlshooter, and said to them, 'Who are you, friends, and where are you going?'—'We,' answered they, 'are two clever men, who are travelling through the world to see if we can find a cleverer man than we; but who may you be, and where are you going?'—'I,' replied the third man, 'am a Pundit, a man of memory, renowned for my good head, a great thinker; and verily I thought there was