Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 2
General
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 2
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
all comfort; till one day of the days it so chanced that a woman came 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 coin 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 livelong 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 Sixth Hundred and Fourteenth Night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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