e
one distracted, till the bowl, by a sudden slip of his foot, fell from
his shoulder on the pavement of ruin, and was broken into a hundred
pieces. At the same instant, all that he had in the house, and whatever
he had circulated in the city, suddenly vanished;--the banquet of
exultation was quickly converted into mourning, and he who a little
before danced for joy now beat his breast for sorrow, blamed to no
purpose the rigour of his inauspicious fortune, and execrated the hour
of his birth. Thus a jewel fell into the hands of an unworthy person,
who was unacquainted with its value; and an inestimable gem was
entrusted to an indigent wretch, who, by his ignorance and ostentation,
converted it to his own destruction.

* * * * *

"Melodious bulbul of the long-eared race," continued the elk, "as the
wood-cutter's dancing was an unpardonable folly which met with the
chastisement it deserved, so I fearfully anticipate that your
unseasonable singing will become your exemplary punishment."

His ass-ship listened thus far with reluctance to the admonition of his
friend, without intending to profit by it; but arose from the carpet of
spinach, eyed his companion with a mortifying glance of contempt,
pricked up his long snaky ears, and began to put himself into a musical
posture. The nimble, small-hoofed elk, perceiving this, said to himself:
"Since he has stretched out his neck and prepared his pitch-pipe, he
will not remain long without singing." So he left the vegetable banquet,
leaped over the garden wall, and fled to a place of security. The ass
was no sooner alone than he commenced a most loud and horrible braying,
which instantly awoke the gardeners, who, with the noose of an insidious
halter, to the trunk of a tree fast bound the affrighted musician, where
they belaboured him with their cudgels till they broke every bone in his
body, and converted his skin to a book, in which, in letters of gold, a
munshi [learned man] of luminous pen, with the choicest flowers of the
garden of rhetoric, and for the benefit of the numerous fraternity of
asses, inscribed this instructive history.

* * * * *

Magical articles such as the wonderful wishing-bowl of our unlucky
friend the Faggot-maker figure very frequently in the folk-tales of
almost every country, assuming many different forms: a table-cloth, a
pair of saddle-bags, a purse, a flask, etc.; but since a compreh