given nine aspres, whereupon the Cogia said, ‘O now pray make them up ten’; afterwards he said, ‘Make them up eleven,’ and then presently, a dispute having arisen, he awoke and saw that in his hand he had nothing, thereupon closing his eyes anew and stretching out his hands, he said, ‘Well, well, I shall be content with nine aspres.’

   One day the Cogia went out into the plain, and as he was going along he suddenly saw some men on horseback coming towards him. Cogia Efendi, in a great hurry, set off towards a cemetery, and having reached it took off his clothes, and entering into a tomb lay down. The horsemen, on seeing the Cogia run away, followed him to the place where he lay, and said, ‘O fellow,

   why do you lie here?’ Cogia Efendi, finding nothing else to say, replied, ‘I am one of the buried people, but came here to walk.’

   Cogia Efendi one day went into a garden, pulled up some carrots and turnips and other kinds of vegetables, which he found, putting some into a sack and some into his bosom; suddenly the gardener coming up, laid hold of him, and said, ‘What are you seeking here?’ The Cogia, being in great consternation, not finding any other reply, answered, ‘For some days past a great wind has been blowing, and that wind blew me hither.’ ‘But who pulled up these vegetables?’ said the gardener. ‘As the wind blew very violently,’ replied the Cogia, ‘it cast me here and there, and whatever I laid hold of in the hope of saving myself remained in my hands.’ ‘Ah,’ said the gardener, ‘but who filled the sack with them?’ ‘Well,’ said the Cogia, ‘that is the very question I was about to ask myself when you came up.’

   One day Cogia Efendi, on whom God be merciful, went to the city of Conia, and going into a pastry-cook’s shop, seized hold of a tart, and saying, ‘In the Name of God,’ began to eat it. The pastry-cook cried out, ‘Halloa, fellow, what are you about?’ and fell to beating him. The Cogia said, ‘Oh what a fine country is this of Conia, in which, whilst a man eats a tart, they put in a blow as a digester for every morsel.’

   Cogia Nasr Eddin, at the time of the Holy Ramadan, thought to himself, ‘What must I do in order to hold the fast in conformity with the people? I must prepare an earthen pot, and every day put a stone into it, and when thirty days are completed I may hold my Beiram.’ So he commenced placing stones in the pot, one every day. Now it happened one day that a daughter of the Cogia cast a handful of stones into the pot, and a little time after some people asked the Cogia, ‘What day of 

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