Page:Tales of old Lusitania.djvu/55

Rh he got from the load, the poor donkey got most dreadful sores on his back, so that my father was obliged to take it to the veterinary surgeon. The surgeon ordered a poultice of bean-flour to be applied, but my father, instead of using flour, made the poultice with whole beans. From this poultice a field full of beans grew upon the donkey's back. An enormous melon also grew upon the donkey, which, as my father attempted to cut in two with his large hatchet, the hatchet fell inside the melon. My father went down into the melon to get his hatchet. Inside the melon he found a man who told him that he had lost two oxen attached to a harrow, which he had been seeking inside the melon for the last eight days. He told my father to go away and not be so silly. My father then fastened a long, very long, ladder upon the donkey, and ascended up to heaven by the help of it, where he found all the noblemen's seats ready for them. But for your excellency there was not one prepared, as far as I know."

"Great scoundrel!" cried the lord, full of wrath at having had his time taken up with this tissue of lies, "be off, you thief, with your big lie; let me never catch you here again."

"Ha! hal" cried the idiot, clapping his hands, "My father does not owe you anything now, so I have won the day!"

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