pleased God that it again began to rain, every one escaped as fast as he could, but the Bey on the good-for-nothing horse was left behind, and at last reached home, creeping along like a crane. He was very much incensed at what the Cogia had told him, and the next day addressed him in this manner: ‘Was it fit and proper that you should tell me the lie you did, and cause me to be wet through by the rain which God sent?’ Said the Cogia, ‘Why are you angry with me? Why had you not sense enough to strip off your clothes as I did, and sit upon them, and when the rain was over, dress yourself and come here?’

   One day the Bey sent this message to the Cogia, ‘Come, I intend to play the jerreed with you, for I wish to have a little jerreed playing.’ Now the Cogia had an old ox, which, saddling immediately, he mounted, and rode to the place where they played at the jerreed. No sooner did the people see him than they fell to laughing, and the Bey said, ‘O Cogia, why did you mount that ox, for it can’t run?’ ‘Can’t it?’ said the Cogia. ‘I have seen it when it was a calf running so fast that no horse could overtake it.’

   One day Tamerlank invited the Cogia to dine with him. The Cogia accepted the invitation, and mounting his ass, taking the groom along with him, set out, saying, ‘Now, Tamerlank, where may you be?’ When he came to the Emperor, Timour Shah, pointing to a place, bade him sit down. The Cogia, seeing that Timour Shah sat with one foot supported on a cushion, when he sat down, stretched out his own leg, and placed it upon a corner of the cushion. Timour Shah being very much offended that the Cogia stretched out his leg as he did, said to himself, ‘If I do so I have an excuse, and I am also a king’; and then said to the Cogia, ‘When you mount your ass, what is the difference between you and him?’ The Cogia replied, ‘My Emperor, only this cushion divides us which is placed upon his back.’ The Shah, perceiving the taunt, was very much incensed, and determined to mortify the Cogia. The food being brought, they began to eat, and presently Timour, without any cause, sneezed in the Cogia’s face. The Cogia, when he saw Tamerlank do this, said, ‘My Emperor, is it not ill manners to do so?’ ‘It is not in our country,’ said Tamerlank. Forthwith the Cogia let a ---; and when Tamerlank said, ‘Is not that ill manners?’ he replied, ‘It is not reckoned so in our country.’ The repast being over, the sherbet was brought; and then the Cogia, getting up, set off on his way home. ‘Why did you break wind in the presence of Timour?’ said the groom. Answered the Cogia, ‘When the Imam --- the assembly breaks up.’

   One day 

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