[Footnote 184: Geho!]
The improvised ass neither started nor shook his bell, and the gardener mounted to the machine, in which, to his great consternation, he found his ass changed into a student. "What is this?" he cried. "My master," said the student, "some ill-natured witches transformed me into an ass, but I have fulfilled the term of my enchantment and returned to my original shape."
The poor gardener was disconsolate, but what could be done? He unharnessed the student, and, bidding him go with God-speed, set out sorrowfully for the fair to buy another beast. The very first that presented itself was his own, which had been bought by a company of gipsies. The moment he cast his eyes upon it, he took to his heels, exclaiming, "Let some one buy you that don't know you."
Yo te cono cí ciruelo—I knew you when you were a plum-tree—is a common saying. The people of a certain village bought a plum-tree of a gardener, for the purpose of having it converted into an effigy of St. Peter. When the image was finished and set up in the church, the gardener went to see it, and, observing the somewhat lavish coloring and gilding of its drapery, exclaimed:
"Gloriosisimo San Pedro,
Yo te cono cí ciruelo,
Y de tu fruta comi;
Los misagros que tu hagas
Que me me los cuelgan á mi!"
"Most glorious Saint Peter!
I knew you when you were a plum-tree,
and ate of your fruit;
the miracles you do,
let them hang upon me."
Ya saco raja—He has got a share—is often said, and we trace it to Estremadura, where the live-oak groves are divided into rajas; raja being the name of an extension yielding acorns enough to feed a given number of hogs. When the rajas are public property, they are distributed at a trifling rent to the poorer householders, who are, as will be supposed, very anxious to have them. But to obtain one is difficult, for the ayuntamientos, or town councils, generally give them to their protégés and hangers-on; and, from this circumstance, "He has got a hog-pasture," has come to be said of any person that by skill, cunning, audacity, or good luck succeeds in obtaining an advantage difficult to get, or of which the getting depends upon some one else.
El que tiene capa escapa—He that wears a cloak escapes—dates from the giving way of the new bridge at Puerto Santa Maria, under the weight of the great crowd that had collected upon it. To prevent thefts and disturbances, Captain-General O'Kelly issued an order to the effect that no person wearing a cloak should be allowed to cross the bridge. In consequence of this order, no one wearing a cloak fell into the river.
It is usual to indicate that a person is poor by saying, El esta á la cuarta pregunta—He is at the fourth question. This assertion is derived from the interrogation of witnesses for the defence in suits when, among other circumstances, that of poverty is wished to be proved. This extreme being comprehended in the fourth question, as follows: "Does the witness know, of his own knowledge, that the party he represents is poor, and possesses neither landed property nor income; so that he has absolutely no means of support except the product of his own labor?"