Page:Swahili tales.djvu/63

Rh "Oh, lies! I don't want your words to-day I only want you to leave me, and live with your concubine."

All at once there came a man and called him, "Fundi!" [Master workman.] And he replied, "Here." He said, "I have five words I want to say to you." He said, "All right." He said, "Come, then, and let us whisper." He said, "All right." He said, "There is a man wants to marry your daughter." He said, "That is good, I am very glad;" and he said, "You see the dispute at this house here, between me and my wife, because of this girl, I have bought her a slave, and now my wife says it is my own concubine, so my child had better be married and I get some peace." And he said, "I, too, have agreed to it." So he went to carry back to the man who had asked her in marriage the words he had for answer from his sweetheart's father.

So when he went to call the man who asked her in marriage, he found him in his house asleep, and he told a child who was there in the house, "Wake him at once; he sent me with a message, and I want to give him the answer I got where I come from." And she said, "All right;" and the child went inside and woke him, "Father!" And he answered, "Yes; why are you waking me? What do you wake me for before my sleep is finished." And she said, "It is your messenger; he has come from where you sent him, to give you the answer." And he said, "May it be a good omen," and went outside. And he invited him in. "Come in; well, what is your news from where you went?" And he said, "It is good there; I do not know how it is with yourself." And he said, "Myself has been the first to like, and has not been the first to refuse."

"I am sent by your father-in-law with many compliments, and after compliments, there are no good things you could do him like these. And so he is ready and you