A Tamsil, or application in point.--They asked a Siyah-gosh, or lion-provider, "Why do you choose the service of the lion?" He answered: "Because I subsist on the leavings of his prey, and am secure from the ill-will of my enemies under the asylum of his valor." They said: "Now you have got within the shadow of his protection and admit a grateful sense of his bounty, why do you not approach more closely, that he may include you within the circle of select courtiers and number you among his chosen servants?" He replied, "I should not thus be safe from his violence."--Though a Guebre may keep his fire alight for a hundred years, if he fall once within its flame it will burn him.--_Procul à Jove, procul à fulmine_. It on one occasion may chance that the courtier of the king's presence shall pick up a purse of gold, and the next that he shall lie shorter by the head. And philosophers have remarked, saying, "It is incumbent on us to be constantly aware of the fickle dispositions of kings, who will one moment take offence at a salutation, and at another make an honorary dress the return for an act of rudeness; and they have said, That to be over much facetious is the accomplishment of courtiers and blemish of the wise.--Be wary, and preserve the state of thine own character, and leave sport and buffoonery to jesters and courtiers." XVI One of my associates brought me a complaint of his perverse fortune, saying, "I have small means and a large family, and cannot bear up with my load of poverty. Often has a thought crossed my mind, suggesting, Let me remove into another country, that in whatever way I can manage a livelihood none may be informed of my good or bad luck."--(Often he went asleep hungry, and nobody was aware, saying, "Who is he?" Often did his life hang upon his lip, and none lamented over him.)--"On the other hand, I reflect on the exultation of my rivals, saying, They will scoffingly sneer behind my back, and impute my zeal in behalf of my family to a want of humanity.--Do but behold that graceless vagabond who can never witness the face of good fortune. He will consult the ease of his own person and abandon to distress his wife and children.--And, as is known, I have some small skill in the science of accounts. If, through your respected interest, any office can be obtained that may be the means of quieting my mind, I shall not, during the remainder of life, be able to express my sense of its gratitude." I replied, "O brother, the service of kings offers a twofold prospect--a hope of maintenance and a fear for existence; and it accords not with the counsel of the wise, under that expectation, to incur this risk.--No tax-gatherer will enter the dervish's abode, saying, Pay me the rent of a field and orchard; either put up with trouble and chagrin, or give thy heartstrings to the crows to pluck."