chanced to belch. ‘You do wrong to belch, Cogia Moolah Efendi,’ said the Beys. ‘I am amongst Curds,’ said the Cogia. ‘How should they know a Turkish belching, even though they hear it?’

   One day the Cogia went with Cheragh Ahmed to the den of a wolf, in order to see the cubs. Said the Cogia to Ahmed: ‘Do you go in.’ Ahmed did so. The old wolf was abroad, but presently returning, tried to get into the cave to its young. When it was about half-way in the Cogia seized hard hold of it by the tail. The wolf in its struggles cast a quantity of dust into the eyes

   of Ahmed. ‘Hallo, Cogia,’ he cried, ‘what does this dust mean?’ ‘If the wolf’s tail breaks,’ said the Cogia, ‘you’ll soon see what the dust means.’

   One day the Cogia mounted upon a tree, and, sitting upon a branch, forthwith began to cut it. A person coming up said, ‘Hallo, man! what are you about? as soon as you have cut the branch you will fall.’ The Cogia made no answer, but went on cutting, and no sooner had he cut through the bough than down fell the Cogia to the ground. Getting up, he ran after the person, crying out, ‘Ho, fellow, if you knew that I should fall you also knew that I should kill myself,’ and forthwith seized him by the collar. The man, finding no other way to save himself, said, ‘Leave hold of me and fling yourself down on the road face upwards. At the first belching that you give half your soul will leave your body; at the second, all will go and not a particle will remain.’ The Cogia did so, and at the second belching, laying himself down on the ground, he cried, ‘I am dead,’ and remained motionless. Forthwith the Ulemas hastened to him, and bringing with them a coffin, placed him in it, saying, ‘Let us carry him home.’ On their way, coming to a miry place, they said, ‘We will rest,’ and began to talk together. The Cogia, forthwith raising his head from the coffin, said, ‘If I were alive I would get out of this place as quick as possible.’

   One day the Cogia set about making a stable under the earth. As he was digging, he got into a stable of one of his neighbours, in which he found several oxen. The Cogia, very much rejoiced, went into his house, and said, ‘O wife, I have found a stable of oxen; a relic of the times of the Caffirs. Now what will you give me for bringing you this piece of good news?’

   Nasr Eddin Efendi had two daughters. One day the two coming to see their father, the Cogia said to them, ‘Well, daughters, how do things go on with you?’ Now, the husband of one of them was a farmer, that of the other was a maker of tiles. One of them said, ‘My husband has sown 

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