Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/280

252 hand and wept. He asked her what ailed her and she said, ‘O my son, look at my son who stands yonder. He was ill and exposed himself to the air, which corrupted his wit. He used to buy asses and now, whether he sit or stand or walk, he saith nothing but “My ass!” Now I have been told by a certain physician that his mind is disordered and that nothing will cure him but drawing two of his grinders and cauterizing him twice on the temples. So do thou take this dinar and call him to thee, saying, “Thine ass is with me.”’ ‘May I fast for a year,’ said the barber, ‘if I do not give him his ass in his fist!’ Now he had with him two journeymen; so he said to one of them, ‘Heat the irons.’

Then the old woman went her way and the barber called to the ass-driver, saying, ‘Harkye, good fellow! Thine ass is with me; come and take him, and as thou livest, I will give him into thy hand.’ So he came to him and the barber carried him into a dark room, where he knocked him down and the journeymen bound him hand and foot. Then he pulled out two of his grinders and cauterized him on both temples; after which he let him go, and he rose and said, ‘O Moor, why hast thou used me thus?’ Quoth the barber, ‘Thy mother told me that thou hadst taken cold, whilst ill, and lost thy reason, so that, whether sitting or standing or walking, thou wouldst say nothing but “My ass!” So here is thine ass in thy fist.’ ‘God requite thee,’ said the other, ‘for pulling out my teeth!’ Then the barber told him all that the old woman had said and he exclaimed, ‘May God torment her!’ And the two went out, disputing, and left the shop. When the barber returned, he found his shop empty, for, whilst he was absent, the old woman had taken all that was therein and made off with it to her daughter, to whom she told all that had befallen. The barber, seeing this, caught hold of the ass-driver and said to him, ‘Bring me thy mother.’