"Oh Cadi! I have a wife and a large family, and I support them by throwing the shuttle from the right to the left, and again from the left to the right; first using the one eye and then the other. If you remove one of my eyes, I will not be able to weave, and my wife and children will suffer the pangs of hunger. Why not, in the place of my eye, remove that of the hunter who uses but one eye in exercising his profession, and to whom two eyes are superfluous?"
The Cadi was impressed, acknowledged the justice of the weaver's remarks, and the hunter was immediately sent for. The hunter being brought, the Cadi was greatly rejoiced to notice that the hunter's eyes were exactly the same color as his own. He asked the hunter how he earned his living, and receiving his answer that he was a hunter, the Cadi asked him how he shot. The hunter in reply demonstrated the manner by putting up his arms, his head to a side, and closing one eye. The Cadi said the weaver was right, and immediately sent for the surgeon to have the eye removed. Further, the Cadi bethought him that he might profit by this and have the hunter's eye placed in his own socket. The surgeon set to work and prepared the cavity to receive the hunter's eye. This done with a practised hand, the surgeon removed the hunter's eye and was about to place it in the prepared socket, when it accidentally slipped from his fingers to the ground, and was snatched up by a cat. The surgeon was terrified and madly ran after the cat; but alas! the cat had eaten the eye. What was he to do? On the inspiration of the moment he snatched out the eye of the cat, and placing it in the Cadi's head, bound it up.
Some time after the surgeon asked the Cadi how he saw.
"Oh," replied the Cadi, "with my old eye I see as usual, but strange to say, the new eye you placed in my head is continually searching and watching for rat holes."
THE PRAYER RUG AND THE DISHONEST STEWARD
poor Hamal (porter) brought to the Pasha of Stamboul his savings, consisting of a small canvas bag of medjidies (Turkish silver dollars), to be kept for him, while he was absent on a visit to his home. The Pasha, being a kind-hearted man, consented, and after sealing the bag, called his steward, instructing him to keep it till the owner called for it. The steward gave the man a receipt, to the effect that he had received a sealed bag containing money.
When the poor man returned, he went to the Pasha and received his bag of money. On reaching his room he opened the bag, and to his horror found that it contained, instead of the medjidies he had put in it, copper piasters, which are about the same size as medjidies. The poor Hamal was miserable, his hard-earned savings gone.