To this request the Caliph agreed. “Abul Hassan, you have condemned yourself,” he said. He then bade the guards take Abul Hassan away and execute him according to the law.
Before the wretched man was hanged, however, he confessed his guilt and told where he had hidden the thousand pieces of gold that belonged to Ali Cogia.
After Abul had been led away the Caliph caressed and praised the lad for conducting the case so wisely and with so much judgment.
“As for you,” said he to the Cadi, “you have not shown the wisdom I demand from my judges. Learn from this child that such cases are not to be dismissed lightly, but to be inquired into with judgment and care. Otherwise it may go ill with you.”
The Cadi retired, full of shame, but the Caliph ordered that a hundred pieces of gold should be given to the boy and that he should be sent home to his mother with honor.
OH!
A Cossack Story
There was once a man who had one son, and he was so lazy that he would not work at all. The father apprenticed him to a tailor, but the lad went to sleep between the stitches. He apprenticed him to a cobbler and the lad only sat and yawned instead of driving pegs. What to do with him the man did not know.
“Come,” said the father one day, “we will go out into the wide world. It may be that somewhere or other we will find a master who can make you work.”