acked chattie, in
which he could not carry sufficient water to mix the mortar properly.
Then the potter was brought before the judge, and he explained that the
blame should not be laid upon him, but upon a very pretty woman, who, in
a beautiful dress, was passing at the time he was making the chattie,
and had so riveted his attention, that he forgot all about the work.
When the woman appeared, she protested that the fault was not hers, for
she would not have been in that neighbourhood at all had the goldsmith
sent home her earrings at the proper time; the charge, she argued,
should properly be brought against him. The goldsmith was brought, and
as he was unable to offer any reasonable excuse, he was condemned to be
hanged. Those in the court, however, begged the judge to spare the
goldsmith's life; "for," said they, "he is very sick and ill-favoured,
and would not make at all a pretty spectacle." "But," said the judge,
"somebody must be hanged." Then they drew the attention of the court to
the fact that there was a fat Moorman in a shop opposite, who was a much
fitter subject for an execution, and asked that he might be hanged in
the goldsmith's stead. The learned judge, considering that this
arrangement would be very satisfactory, gave judgment accordingly.

If some of the last-cited stories are not precisely Gothamite
drolleries, though all are droll enough in their way, there can be no
doubt whatever that we have a Sinhalese brother to the men of Gotham in
the following: A villager in Ceylon, whose calf had got its head into a
pot and could not get it out again, sent for a friend, celebrated for
his wisdom, to release the poor animal. The sagacious friend, taking in
the situation at a glance, cut off the calf's head, broke the pot, and
then delivered the head to the owner of the calf, saying, "What will you
do when I am dead and gone?"--And we have another Gothamite in the
Kashmiri who bought as much rice as he thought would suffice for a
year's food, and finding he had only enough for eleven months, concluded
it was better to fast the other month right off, which he did
accordingly; but he died just before the month was completed, leaving
eleven months' rice in his house.

* * * * *

The typical noodle of the Turks, the Khoja Nasru-'d-Din, is said to have
been a subject of the independent prince of Karaman, at whose capital,
Konya, he resided, and he is represented as a contemporary