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238 fate is, when it has turned against you. Even these poor sesame grains it has made unfit to eat. Well, I will take them to some neighbor's house, and make an exchange, unhulled for hulled. For anybody will bargain on those terms." So she put her grain in a basket and went from house to house, saying: "Who cares to exchange sesame unhulled for sesame hulled?"

Now she happened to enter with her grain a house which I had entered to beg alms, and she made her offer there. The housewife was delighted and took the hulled grain in exchange for unhulled. Later, her husband came home and asked: "My dear, what does this mean?" And she told him: "I made a bargain hulled sesame for unhulled."

Over this he pondered, then said: "To whom did this grain belong?" And his son Kamandaki told him: "To Mother Shandilee." Then he said: "My dear wife, she is mighty shrewd at a bargain. You had better throw this sesame away.

"So," said Wide-Bottom, "he surely derives this vigor in jumping from the smell of his hoard." And he continued: "Do you know his manner of attack?" "Yes, holy sir, I do," answered Crop-Ear. "He comes not alone, but with a school of mice."

"Well now," said Wide-bottom, "is there any