One day the Bey sent this message to the Cogia, ‘Come, I intend to play the jerreed with you, for I wish to have a little jerreed playing.’ Now the Cogia had an old ox, which, saddling immediately, he mounted, and rode to the place where they played at the jerreed. No sooner did the people see him than they fell to laughing, and the Bey said, ‘O Cogia, why did you mount that ox, for it can’t run?’ ‘Can’t it?’ said the Cogia. ‘I have seen it when it was a calf running so fast that no horse could overtake it.’
One day Tamerlank invited the Cogia to dine with him. The Cogia accepted the invitation, and mounting his ass, taking the groom along with him, set out, saying, ‘Now, Tamerlank, where may you be?’ When he came to the Emperor, Timour Shah, pointing to a place, bade him sit down. The Cogia, seeing that Timour Shah sat with one foot supported on a cushion, when he sat down, stretched out his own leg, and placed it upon a corner of the cushion. Timour Shah being very much offended that the Cogia stretched out his leg as he did, said to himself, ‘If I do so I have an excuse, and I am also a king’; and then said to the Cogia, ‘When you mount your ass, what is the difference between you and him?’ The Cogia replied, ‘My Emperor, only this cushion divides us which is placed upon his back.’ The Shah, perceiving the taunt, was very much incensed, and determined to mortify the Cogia. The food being brought, they began to eat, and presently Timour, without any cause, sneezed in the Cogia’s face. The Cogia, when he saw Tamerlank do this, said, ‘My Emperor, is it not ill manners to do so?’ ‘It is not in our country,’ said Tamerlank. Forthwith the Cogia let a ---; and when Tamerlank said, ‘Is not that ill manners?’ he replied, ‘It is not reckoned so in our country.’ The repast being over, the sherbet was brought; and then the Cogia, getting up, set off on his way home. ‘Why did you break wind in the presence of Timour?’ said the groom. Answered the Cogia, ‘When the Imam --- the assembly breaks up.’
One day the Cogia roasted a goose, and set out in order to carry it to the Emperor. On the way, feeling very hungry, he cut off one leg and ate it. Coming into the presence of the Emperor, he placed the goose before him. On seeing it, Tamerlank said to himself, ‘The Cogia is making game of me,’ and was very angry, and demanded, ‘How happens it that this goose has but one foot?’ Said the Cogia, ‘In our country all the geese have only one foot. If you disbelieve me, look at the geese by the side of that fountain.’ Now at that time there was a flock of geese by the rim of the fountain, all of whom were standing on one leg. Timour instantly ordered that all the drummers should at once play up; the drummers began to strike with their sticks, and forthwith all the geese stood on both legs. On Timour saying, ‘Don’t you see that they have two legs?’ the Cogia replied, ‘If you keep up that drumming you yourself will presently have four.’
Cogia Efendi, now at rest with God, having been made Cadi, two individuals came before him, one of whom said, ‘This fellow nearly bit my ear off.’ The other said, ‘Not so: I did not bite it, but he bit his own ear.’ The Cogia said, ‘Come again in a little time and I will give you an answer.’ The men went away, and the Cogia, going into a private place, seized hold of his ear. ‘I can’t bite it,’ said he. Then trying to rise from the ground, on which he had seated himself, he fell back and broke a part of his head. Forthwith wrapping a piece of cloth round his head,
he went back and sat in his place. The two men coming and asking for his decision, the Cogia said, ‘No man can bite his own ear; but, if he tries, may fall down and break his head.’
Once as the Cogia was lying in bed, at midnight a noise was heard in the street before the door. Said the Cogia to his wife, ‘Get up and light a candle, and I will go and see.’ ‘You had better stay within,’ said his wife. But the Cogia, without heeding his wife, put the counterpane on his shoulders and went out. A fellow perceiving him, instantly snatched the counterpane from off his shoulders and ran away. The Cogia, shivering with cold, went in again; and when his wife asked him the cause of the noise, he said, ‘It was on account of our counterpane: when they got that the noise ceased at once.’
One day the Cogia’s wife said to him, ‘Nurse this child for a little time, for I have a little business to see after.’ The Cogia, taking the child, sat with him upon his lap. Presently, however, the child p--- upon the Cogia; whereupon the Cogia, getting up, p--- over the child, from head to foot. His wife coming, said, ‘O Cogia, why have you acted in this manner?’ ‘I would have --- over him,’ said the Cogia, ‘if he had done so over me.’
One day the Cogia’s wife, having washed the Cogia’s kaftan, hung it upon a tree to dry; the
Cogia going out saw, as he supposed, a man standing in the tree with his arms stretched out. Says the Cogia to his wife, ‘O wife, go and fetch me my bow and arrow.’ His wife fetched and brought them to him; the Cogia taking an arrow, shot it and pierced the kaftan and stretched it on the ground; then returning, he made fast his door and lay down to sleep. Going out in the morning he saw that what he had shot was his own kaftan; thereupon, sitting down, he cried aloud, ‘O God, be thanked; if I had been in it I should have certainly been killed.’
One day the Cogia, going to the College, mounted into the car, in the rear of the Moolahs. Said the Moolahs, ‘O Cogia, why did you mount backwards?’ ‘If I got in straightways,’ said the Cogia, ‘you would be at my back. If you went before me your backs would be in my face, therefore I mounted in this manner.’