some time quite senseless. His wife coming and seeing him lying motionless, began to lament. After some time, the Cogia, recovering a little, on seeing his wife weeping by his side, exclaimed, ‘O wife, do not weep, I have suffered a great deal, but I have had my desire.’

   One day a thief got into the Cogia’s house. Cries his wife, ‘O Cogia, there is a thief in the house.’ ‘Don’t make any disturbance,’ says the Cogia. ‘I wish to God that he may find something, so that I may take it from him.’

   One day the Cogia’s wife said to him, ‘Go and lie down yonder, a little way off.’ The Cogia, getting up, forthwith took his shoes in his hand, and walked during two days; at the end of which, meeting a man, he said, ‘Go and ask my wife whether I have gone far enough, or must go yet farther.’

   One night as the Cogia was lying with his wife, he said, ‘O wife, if you love me, get up and light a candle, that I may write down a verse which has come into my head.’ His wife, getting up, lighted the candle, and brought him pen and inkstand. The Cogia wrote, and his wife said, ‘O Efendi of my soul, won’t you read to me what you have written?’ Whereupon the Cogia read, ‘Amongst the green leaves methinks I see a black hen go with a red bill.’

   One day the Cogia being ill, a number of women came to inquire about his health. One of the women said, ‘God knows whether you will die; but if you do, what shall we say when we lament over you?’ ‘Say this,’ said the Cogia, ‘when you lament over me, “Notwithstanding all he did, he could never understand everything.”’

   Cogia Efendi, every time he returned to his house, was in the habit of bringing a piece of liver, which his wife always gave to a common woman, placing before the Cogia leavened patties to eat when he came home in the evening. One

   day the Cogia said, ‘O wife, every day I bring home a liver: where do they all go to?’ ‘The cat runs away with all of them,’ replied the wife. Thereupon the Cogia getting up, put his hatchet in the trunk and locked it up. Says his wife to the Cogia, ‘For fear of whom do you lock up the hatchet?’ ‘For fear of the cat,’ replied the Cogia. ‘What should the cat do with the hatchet?’ said the wife. ‘Why,’ replied the Cogia, ‘as he takes a fancy to the liver, which costs two aspres, is it not likely that he will take a fancy to the hatchet, which costs four?’

   One day the wife of the Cogia wanted to go to the bath. Now the Cogia had a little money which he kept in a corner hid from his 

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