the least have called me to show them
my gazelles, and was there one among them who cared to buy? It is the
custom for a trader in merchandise to be summoned hither and thither,
and who knows where one may find a buyer?' And he took up his cage and
went towards the scratcher of dust-heaps, and the men went with him.

'What do you ask for your gazelles?' said the beggar. 'Will you let me
have one for an eighth?'

And the man with the cage took out a gazelle, and held it out, saying,
'Take this one, master!'

And the beggar took it and carried it to the dust-heap, where he
scratched carefully till he found a few grains of corn, which he divided
with his gazelle. This he did night and morning, till five days went by.

Then, as he slept, the gazelle woke him, saying, 'Master.'

And the man answered, 'How is it that I see a wonder?'

'What wonder?' asked the gazelle.

'Why, that you, a gazelle, should be able to speak, for, from the
beginning, my father and mother and all the people that are in the world
have never told me of a talking gazelle.'

'Never mind that,' said the gazelle, 'but listen to what I say! First,
I took you for my master. Second, you gave for me all you had in the
world. I cannot run away from you, but give me, I pray you, leave to go
every morning and seek food for myself, and every evening I will come
back to you. What you find in the dust-heaps is not enough for both of
us.'

'Go, then,' answered the master; and the gazelle went.

When the sun had set, the gazelle came back, and the poor man was very
glad, and they lay down and slept side by side.

In the morning it said to him, 'I am going away to feed.'

And the man replied, 'Go, my son,' but he felt very lonely without
his gazelle, and set out sooner than usual for the dust-heap where he
generally found most corn. And glad he was when the evening came, and he
could return home. He lay on the grass chewing tobacco, when the gazelle
trotted up.

'Good evening, my master; how have you fared all day? I have been
resting in the shade in a place where there is sweet grass when I am
hungry, and fresh water when I am thirsty, and a soft breeze to fan me
in the heat. It is far away in the forest, and no one knows of it but
me, and to-morrow I shall go again.'

So for five days the gazelle set off at daybreak for this cool spot, but
on the fifth day it came to a place where the grass was bitter, and it
did not like it, and scratched, hoping