He would have liked to have played the grand seignior, if only thereby to get rid of some of his money, but the rôle did not suit him at all. If, for instance, he wanted to build a palace, there was so much calculating how, in what manner, and by whom it could be built most cheaply, that it scarce cost him anything at all, but then it never turned out a palace. Or if he wanted to give a feast, it was easy enough to select the handsomest of the boyars for his guests. Whatever was necessary for the feast—wine, meat, bread, honey, and sack-pipers—was supplied in such abundance from his own magazines and villages, that he absolutely despaired to think how it was that his ancestors had not only devoured their immense estates, but had even piled up debts upon them. To him this remained an insoluble problem, and after bothering his head for a long time as to what he should do with his eternally accumulating capital, he at last hit upon a good idea. The spacious garden surrounding his crazy castle had, by his especial command, been planted with all sorts of rare and pleasant plants—like basil, lavender, wild saffron, hops, and gourds—over whom a tenant had been promoted as gardener to look after them. One year the garden produced such gigantic gourds, that each one was as big as a pitcher. The astonished neighbours came in crowds to gaze at them, and the promoted ex-boyar swore a hundred times that such gourds as these the Turkish Sultan himself had not seen all his life long.
This gave Master Michael an idea. He made up his mind that he would send one of these gourds to the Sultan as a present. So he selected the finest and roundest of them, of a beautiful flesh-coloured rind, encircled by dark-green stripes, with a turban-shaped cap at the top of it, and, boring a little hole through it, drew out the pulp and filled it instead with good solid ducats of the finest stamp, and placing it on his best six-oxened wagon, he selected his wisest tenant, and, dinning well into his head where to go, what to say, and to whom to say it, sent him off with the great gourd to the Sublime Porte at Stambul.
It took the cart three weeks to get to Constantinople.
The good, worthy farmer, upon declaring that he brought gifts for the Grand Seignior, was readily admitted into the presence, and after kissing the hem of the Padishah's robe, drew the bright cloth away from the presented pumpkin and deposited it in front of the Diván.
The Sultan flew into a violent rage at the sight of the gift.
"Dost thou take me for a swine, thou unbelieving dog, that thou bringest me a gourd?" cried he.
And straightway he commanded the Kiaja Beg to remove both the gourd and the man. The gourd he was to dash to pieces on the ground, the bringer of the gourd was to have dealt unto him a hundred stripes on the soles of his feet, but the sender of the gourd was to lose his head.
The Kiaja Beg did as he was commanded. He banged the gourd down in the courtyard outside, and behold! a stream of shining ducats gushed out of it instead of the pulp. Nevertheless, faithful above all things to his orders, he had the poor farmer flung down on his face, and gave him such a sound hundred stripes on the soles of his feet that he had no wish for any more.
Immediately afterwards he hastened to inform the Sultan that the gourd had been dashed to the ground, the hundred blows with the stick duly paid, the silken cord ready packed, but that the gourd was full of ducats.
At these words the countenance of the Grand Seignior grew serene once more, like the smiling summer sky, and after ordering that the silken cord should be put back in its place, he commanded that the most magnificent of caftans should be distributed both to the bastinadoed farmer and to the boyar who had sent the gift, and that they should both be assured of the gracious favour of the Padishah.