Whilst he was eating the apricots the owner of the garden came in and discovered him.
"What are you doing up there, Khoja?" said he.
"O my soul!" said the Khoja, "I am not the person you imagine me to be. Do you not see that I am a nightingale? I am singing in the apricot-tree."
"Let me hear you sing," said the gardener.
The Khoja began to trill like a bird; but the noise he made was so uncouth that the man burst out laughing.
"What kind of a song is this?" said he. "I never heard a nightingale's note like that before."
"It is not the voice of a native songster," said the Khoja demurely, "but the foreign nightingale sings so."
Tale 16.—The Khoja's Donkey and The Woollen Pelisse.