Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6)
Science
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
to the bakery to buy her bread and gave the owner several dirhams
to its price, whereof one was bad coin whilst the others were
good. My master tested all the silvers and, finding out the false
bit, returned it demanding a true dirham in exchange; but the
woman wrangled and would not take it back and swore that it was
sound. Quoth the baker, "The dirham is beyond all doubt a
worthless: see yonder dog of mine, he is but a beast, yet mark me
he will tell thee whether it be true or false silver." So he
called me by my name, "Bakht! Bakht!" whereat I sprang up and ran
towards him and he, throwing all the moneys upon the ground
before me, cried, "Here, look these dirhams over and if there be
a false coin among them separate it from all the others." I
inspected the silvers each by each and found the counterfeit:
then, putting it on one side and all the others on another, I
placed my paw upon the false silver and wagging what remained of
my tail looked up at my master's face. The baker was delighted
with my sagacity, and the woman also, marvelling with excessive
marvel at what had happened, took back her bad dirham and paid
another in exchange. But when the buyer fared forth, my master
called together his neighbours and gossips and related to them
this matter; so they threw down on the ground before me coins
both good and bad, in order that they might test me and see with
their own eyes an I were as clever as my master had said I was.
Many times in succession I picked out the false coins from
amongst the true and placed my paw upon them without once
failing; so all went away astounded and related the case to each
and every one they saw and thus the bruit of me spread abroad
throughout the city. That live long day I spent in testing
dirhams fair and foul.--And as the morn began to dawn Shahrazad
held her peace till
The end of the Six Hundred and Fourteenth Night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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