[Quoth one of the learned,] I passed once by a school wherein a schoolmaster was teaching children; so I entered, finding him a good-looking man, and a well-dressed, when he rose to me and made me sit with him. Then I examined him in the Koran, and in syntax and prosody, and lexicography; and behold, he was perfect in all required of him; and I said to him, "Allah strengthen thy purpose! Thou art indeed versed in all that is requisite." Thereafter I frequented him a while, discovering daily some new excellence in him, and quoth I to myself, "This is indeed a wonder in any dominie; for the wise are agreed upon a lack of wit in children's teachers."[1] Then I separated myself from him, and sought him and visited him only every few days, till coming to see him one day, as of wont, I found the school shut, and made inquiry of his neighbours, who replied, "Some one is dead in his house." So I said in my mind, "It behoveth me to pay him a visit of condolence," and going to his house, knocked at the door, when a slave-girl came out to me and asked, "What dost thou want?" and I answered, "I want thy master." She replied, "He is sitting alone mourning;" and I rejoined, "Tell him that his friend So-and-so seeketh to console him." She went in and told him; and he said, "Admit him." So she brought me in to him, and I found him seated alone, and his head bound with mourning fillets. So I said to him, "Allah requite thee amply! This is a path all must perforce tread, and it behoveth thee to take patience," adding, "but who is dead unto thee?" He answered, "One who was dearest of the folk to me, and best beloved." "Perhaps thy father?" "No." "Thy brother?" "No." "One of thy kindred?" "No." Then asked I, "What relation was the dead to thee?" and he answered, "My lover." Quoth I to myself, "This is the first proof to swear by of his lack of wit." So I said to him, "Assuredly there be others than she, and fairer;" and he made answer, "I never saw her that I might judge whether or no there be others fairer than she." Quoth I to myself, "This is another proof positive." Then I said to him, "And how couldst thou fall in love with one thou hast never seen?" He replied, "Know that I was sitting one day at the window, when, lo! there passed by a man, singing the following distich:

"'Umm Amr', thy boons Allah repay!
Give back my heart, be't where it may!'"

The schoolmaster continued, "When I heard the man humming these words as he passed along the street, I said to myself, 'Except this Umm Amru were without equal in the world, the poets had not celebrated her in ode and canzon.' So I fell in love with her; but two days after, the same man passed, singing the following couplet:

"'Ass and Umm Amr' went their way,
Nor she nor ass returned for aye.'

Thereupon I knew that she was dead, and mourned for her. This was three days ago, and I have been mourning ever since." So I left him and fared forth, having assured myself of the weakness of the gerund-grinder's wit[2].

Here, surely, was the very Father of Folly, but what shall we say of judges and magistrates being sometimes (represented as) equally witless? Thus we are told, among the cases decided by a Turkish Kází, that two men came before him one of whom complained that the other had almost bit his ear off. The accused denied this, and declared that the fellow had bit his own ear. After pondering the matter for some time, the judge told them to come again two hours later. Then he went into his private room, and attempted to bring his ear and his mouth together; but all he did was to fall backwards and break his head. Wrapping a cloth round his head, he returned to court, and the two men coming in again presently, he thus decided the question: "No man can bite his own ear, but in trying to do so he may fall down and break his head."

A Sinhalese story, which is also well known in various forms in India, furnishes a still more remarkable example of forensic sagacity. It is thus related by the able editor of The Orientalist, vol. i., p. 191:

One night some thieves broke into the house of a rich man, and carried away all his valuables. The man complained to the justice of the peace, who had the robbers captured, and when brought before him, inquired of them whether they had anything to say in their defence. "Sir," said they, "we are not to blame in this matter; the robbery was entirely due to the mason who built the house; for the walls were so badly made, and gave way so easily, that we were quite unable to resist the temptation of breaking in." Orders were then given to bring the mason to the court-house. On his arrival he was informed of the charge brought against him. "Ah," said he, "the fault is not mine, but that of the coolie, who made mortar badly." When the coolie was brought, he laid the blame on the potter, who, he said, had sold him a cracked chattie, in which he could not carry sufficient water to mix the mortar properly. Then the potter was brought before the judge, and he explained that the blame should not be laid upon him, but upon a very pretty woman, who, in a beautiful dress, was passing at the time he was making the chattie, and had so riveted his attention, that he forgot all about the work. When the woman appeared, she protested that the fault was not hers, for she would not have been in that neighbourhood at all had the goldsmith sent home her earrings at the proper time; the charge, she argued, should properly be brought against him. The goldsmith was brought, and as he was unable to offer any reasonable excuse, he was condemned to be hanged. Those in the court, however, begged the judge to spare the goldsmith's life; "for," said they, "he is very sick and ill-favoured, and would not make at all a pretty spectacle." "But," said the judge, "somebody must be hanged." Then they drew the attention of the court to the fact that there was a fat Moorman in a shop opposite, who was a much fitter subject for an execution, and asked that he might be hanged in the goldsmith's stead. The learned judge, considering that this arrangement would be very satisfactory, gave judgment accordingly.