and hatching the eggs." At length she
contrived to force open the door, and running up to her idiot of a
husband, fetched him a blow that caused him to crush all the
half-hatched eggs. Luckily she had met the ass and her foal on the road,
so the amount of mischief done by her stupid spouse in her absence was
not so great, all things considered.[4]

The misadventures of the Arabian idiot in his expedition to purchase
pease present a close analogy to those of the typical English booby,
only the latter end tragically:

A woman sent her son one day to buy a sheep's head and pluck, and, lest
he should forget his message, he kept bawling loudly as he went along,
"Sheep's head and pluck! sheep's head and pluck!" In getting over a
stile he fell and hurt himself, and forgot what he was sent for, so he
stood a little to consider; and at last he thought he recollected it,
and began to shout, "Liver and lights and gall and all!" which he was
repeating when he came up to a man who was very sick. The man, thinking
the booby was mocking him, laid hold of him, and after cuffing him, bade
the booby cry, "Pray God, send no more up!" So he ran along uttering
these words till he came to a field where a man was sowing wheat, who,
on hearing what he took for a curse upon his labour, seized and thrashed
him, and told him to repeat, "Pray God, send plenty more!" So the young
jolterhead at once "changed his tune," and was loudly singing out these
words when he met a funeral. The chief mourner punished him for what he
thought his fiendish wish, and bade him say, "Pray God, send the soul to
heaven!" which he was bawling when he met a he and a she-dog going to be
hanged. The good people who heard him were greatly shocked at his
seeming profanity, and striking him, strictly charged him to cry, "A he
and a she-dog going to be hanged!" On he went, accordingly, repeating
this new cry, till he met a man and a woman going to be married. When
the bridegroom heard what the booby said, he gave him many a good thump,
and bade him say, "I wish you much joy!" This he was crying at the top
of his voice when he came to a pit into which two labourers had fallen,
and one of them, enraged at what he thought his mockery of their
misfortune, exerted all his strength and scrambled out, then beat the
poor simpleton, and told him to say, "The one is out; I wish the other
was!" Glad to be set free, the booby went on shouting these words till
he met with a one-eyed man