Readers of our early English jest-books will perhaps remember the story of a court-jester being facetiously ordered by the king to make out a list of all the fools in his dominions, who replied that it would be a much easier task to write down a list of all the wise men. I fancy there is some trace of this incident in the following Persian story, though the details are wholly different: Once upon a time a party of merchants exhibited to a king some fine horses, which pleased him so well that he bought them, and gave the merchants besides a large sum of money to pay for more horses which they were to bring from their own country. Some time after this the king, being merry with wine, said to his chief vazir: "Make me out a list of all the blockheads in my kingdom." The vazir replied that he had already made out such a list, and had put his Majesty's name at the top. "Why so?" demanded the king. "Because," said the vazir, "you gave a great sum of money for horses to be brought by merchants for whom no person is surety, nor does any one know to what country they belong; and this is surely a sign of stupidity." "But what if they should bring the horses?" The vazir readily replied: "If they should bring the horses, I should then erase your Majesty's name and put the names of the merchants in its place."[30] [30] A similar incident is found in the 8th chapter of the Spanish work, _El Conde Lucanor_, written, in the 14th century, by Prince Don Juan Manuel, where a pretended alchemist obtains from a king a large sum of money in order that he should procure in his own distant country a certain thing necessary for the transmutation of the baser metals into gold. The impostor, of course, did not return, and so on, much the same as in the above.--Many others of Don Manuel's tales are traceable to Eastern sources; he was evidently familiar with the Arabic language, and from his long intercourse with the Moors doubtless became acquainted with Asiatic story-books. His manner of telling the stories is, however, wholly his own, and some of them appear to be of his own invention.--There is a variant of the same story in _Pasquils Jests and Mother Bunches Merriments_, in which a servant enters his master's name in a list of all the fools of his acquaintance, because he had lately lent his cousin twenty pounds.