is
concern of property, is sometimes better than to own all the remaining
three-and-twenty, as witness the affair of Johha, the greatest
wiseacre this country has produced. Johha owned a house, consisting of
a single room. Wishing to make a little money, he let his house to
people for a yearly rent (which they paid in advance), reserving to
himself the use of only one kirat of it. To show where his kirat was
situated Johha drove a peg into the wall inside. After the tenants had
been in a week he brought a bag of beans and hung it on his peg. No
one objected; he was exercising his free right. A few days later he
removed the bag of beans and hung up garlic in its place. Again a few
days and he came with an old cat which had been some time dead; and so
on, bringing ever more offensive things, until the tenants were
obliged to leave the house and forfeit their year's rent, without
redress, since Johha was within his rights. Therefore I say to you,
beware. These fathers of kirats will spoil the property.'

Rashid gave an appreciative chuckle, and was going to relate some
story of his own; but just then Casim reappeared, attended not by one
man only but a score of men--the owners of the trees, as it
immediately appeared, for they cried out, as they came up, that it
would be a sin for us to cut them down.

I asked them to elect a spokesman, as I could not deal with all at
once, and Muhammad abu Hasan was pushed forward. He squatted, facing
me, upon the ground, his men behind him. The twigs and leaves of
olives overhead spread a filigree of moving shade upon their puckered
faces. They were evidently much perturbed in mind.

I asked them for how much they would consent to sell those
trees--showing the three I wished to fell to clear a space for
building.

'The freehold, meanest thou?' inquired their spokesman anxiously. 'Not
for five hundred pounds. But we would sell a share.'

'I want no share. I want to cut them down.'

At that there was a general outcry that it must not be.

'The trees would remain yours until the end,' I told them, 'for I
would let you have the wood for your own purposes, and, in addition,
you would have a pretty sum of money.'

There ensued a long and whispered consultation before Muhammad abu
Hasan answered me. At length he said:

'It may not be. Behold, we all are the descendants of one man who
owned these trees in ancient days. But we are not brothers, nor yet
uncles' children, and there is j