Page:Tales from the Gulistan (1928).pdf/192

On the Advantages of Silence

officials of Sultân Mahmûd asked Hasan Muimandi one day what the Sultân had told him about a certain affair. He replied: "You must yourselves have heard it."

They rejoined: "What he says to thee, he does not think proper to communicate to the likes of us."

He answered: "Because he trusts that I shall not reveal it; then why do you ask me [to do so]? A knowing man will not utter every word which occurs to him; it is not proper to endanger one's head for the King's secret."

hesitating in the conclusion of a bargain for the purchase of a house, when a Jew said: "Buy it, for I am one of the landholders of this ward, ask me for a description of the house as it is, and it has no defect."

I replied: "Except that thou art the neighbour of it. A house which has a neighbor like thee is worth ten dirhems of a deficient standard; but the hope must be entertained that after thy death it will be worth a thousand.