“If that is the ring of good luck,” said he, “I do not want to wear the like of it.”
That is the way with mortal man: for one has to have the Ring of Wisdom as well, to turn the Ring of Luck to good account.
And now for Selim the Fisherman.
Well, thus it happened to him. For a while he carried the iron ring around in his pocket—just as so many of us do—without thinking to put it on. But one day he slipped it on his finger—and that is what we do not all of us do. After that he never took it off again, and the world went smoothly with him. He was not rich, but then he was not poor; he was not merry, neither was he sad. He always had enough and was thankful for it, for I never yet knew wisdom to go begging or crying.
So he went his way and he fished his fish, and twelve months and a week or more passed by. Then one day he went past the baker shop and there sat Selim the Baker smoking his pipe of tobacco.
“So, friend,” said Selim the Fisherman, “you are back again in the old place, I see.”
“Yes,” said the other Selim; “awhile ago I was a king, and now I am nothing but a baker again. As for that gold ring with the red stone—they may say it is Luck’s Ring if they choose, but when next I wear it may I be hanged.”
Thereupon he told Selim the Fisherman the story of what had happened to him with all its ins and outs, just as I have told it to you.
“Well!” said Selim the Fisherman, “I should like to have a sight of that island myself. If you want the ring no longer, just let me have it; for maybe if I wear it something of the kind will happen to me.”
“You may have it,” said Selim the Baker. “Yonder it is, and you are welcome to it.”