answered, "I was born three years after my father died, and he
taught me skill in speaking. So I never say what is untrue, my king. It
is true that we ate his buffalo, but all the rest that he alleges is
false." When the king heard this, he and his courtiers could not
restrain their laughter; but he restored the price of the buffalo to the
man, and fined the villagers.

But sometimes even kings have been arrant noodles, and their credulity
quite as amusing--or amazing--as that of their subjects. Once on a time
there was a king who had a handsome daughter, and he summoned his
physicians, and said to them, "Make some preparation of salutary drugs,
which will cause my daughter to grow up quickly, so that she may be
married to a good husband." The physicians, wishing to get a living out
of this royal fool, replied, "There is a medicine which will do this,
but it can only be procured in a distant country; and while we are
sending for it, we must shut up your daughter in concealment, for this
is the treatment laid down in such cases." The king having consented,
they placed his daughter in concealment for several years, pretending
that they were engaged in procuring the medicine; and when she was grown
up, they presented her to the king, saying that she had been made to
grow by the preparation; so the king was highly pleased, and gave them
much wealth.

Between an Indian raja and an Indian dhobie, or washerman, there is the
greatest possible difference socially, but individually--when both are
noodles--there may be sometimes very little to choose; indeed, of the
two, all things considered, the difference, if any, is perhaps in favour
of the humble cleanser of body-clothes. A favourite story in various
parts of India, near akin to that last cited, is of a poor washerman and
his young ass. This simpleton one day, passing a school kept by a
mullah, or Muhammedan doctor of laws, heard him scolding his pupils,
exclaiming that they were still asses, although he had done so much to
make them men. The washerman thought that here was a rare chance, for he
happened to have the foal of the ass that carried his bundles of
clothes, which, since he had no child, he should get the learned mullah
to change into a boy. Thus thinking, he goes next day to the mullah, and
asks him to admit his foal into his school, in order that it should be
changed into the human form and nature. The preceptor, seeing the poor
fellow's simplicity, answered that