sanded and the butter mixed
with lard. For this the bird had her neck wrung and was
thrown upon an ash-heap; but reviving and seeing a dead
cat beside her she cried: "Poor Puss! have you, too,
suffered for telling the truth?"

There is yet another variant of this droll tale, which
has been popular for generations throughout England, and
was quite recently reproduced in an American journal as
a genuine "nigger" story: In olden times there was a
roguish baker who made many of his loaves less than the
regulation weight, and one day, on observing the
government inspector coming along the street, he
concealed the light loaves in a closet. The inspector
having found the bread on the counter of the proper
weight, was about to leave, when a parrot, which the
baker kept in his shop, cried out: "Light bread in the
closet!" This caused a search to be made, and the baker
was heavily fined. Full of fury, the baker seized the
parrot, wrung its neck, and threw it in his back yard,
near the carcase of a pig that had died of the measles.
The parrot, coming to itself again, observed the dead
porker and inquired in a tone of sympathy: "O poor
piggy, didst thou, too, tell about light bread in the
closet?"

Somewhat more credible is the tale of the man who taught a parrot to
say, "What doubt is there of this?" (_dur in cheh shuk_) and took it to
market for sale, fixing the price at a hundred rupis. A Moghul asked the
bird: "Are you really worth a hundred rupis?" to which the bird answered
very readily: "What doubt is there of this?" Delighted with the apt
reply, he bought the parrot and took it home; but he soon found that,
whatever he might say, the bird always made the same answer, so he
repented his purchase and exclaimed: "I was certainly a great fool to
buy this bird!" The parrot said: "What doubt is there of this?" The
Moghul smiled, and gave the bird her liberty.

* * * * *

Sir John Malcolm cites a good example of the ready wit of the citizens
of Isfahan, in his entertaining _Sketches of Persia_, as follows: When
the celebrated Haji Ibrahim was prime minister of Persia [some sixty
years since], his brother was governor of Isfahan, while other members
of his family held several of the first offices of the kingdom. A