"Come, come!" said the gardener, "that answer will not do. This is not a place for selling ladders."
"You must be very ignorant," replied the Khoja gravely, "if you do not know that ladders are salable anywhere."
Tale 18.—The Cat and the Khoja's Supper.
The Khoja, like many another man, was fond of something nice for his supper.
But no matter how often he bought a piece of liver to make a tasty dish, his wife always gave it away to a certain friend of hers, and when the Khoja came home in the evening he got nothing to eat but cakes.
"Wife," said he at last, "I bring home some liver every day that we may have a good supper, and you put nothing but pastry before me. What becomes of the meat?"
"The cat steals it, O Khoja!" replied his wife.