Among numerous variants is the story of the Sicilian booby, Giufà, who was annoyed by the flies, and complained of them to the judge, who told him that he was at liberty to kill a fly wherever he saw it: just then a fly happened to alight on the judge's nose, which Giufà observing, he immediately aimed at it so furious a blow with his fist, that he smashed his worship's nose!
The hopelessness of attempting to impart instruction to the silly son is farther illustrated by the story in a Sinhalese collection: A gúrú was engaged in teaching one of his disciples, but whilst he was teaching the youth was watching the movements of a rat which was entering its hole. As soon as the gúrú had finished his teaching, he said, "Well, my son, has all entered in?" to which the youth replied, "Yes, all has entered in except the tail." And from the same work is the following choice example of "a happy family": A priest went one day to the house of one of his followers, and amongst other things he said, "Tell me now, which of your four children is the best-behaved?" The father replied, "Look, sir, at that boy who has climbed to the top of that thatched building, and is waving aloft a firebrand. Among them all, he is the divinely excellent one." Whereupon the priest placed his finger on his nose, drew a deep, deep sigh, and said, "Is it indeed so? What, then, must the other three be?"
The Turkish romance of the Forty Vazírs—the plan of which is similar to that of the Book of Sindibád and its derivatives—furnishes us with two stories of the same class, one of which is as follows, according to my friend Mr. Gibb's complete translation (the first that has been made in English), recently published:[15]
They have told that in bygone times there was a king, and he had a skilful minstrel. One day a certain person gave to the latter a little boy, that he might teach him the science of music. The boy abode a long time by him, and though the master instructed him, he succeeded not in learning, and the master could make nothing of him. He arranged a scale, and said, "Whatsoever thou sayest to me, say in this scale." So whatsoever the boy said he used to say in that scale. Now one day a spark of fire fell on the master's turban. The boy saw it and chanted, "O master, I see something; shall I say it or no?" and he went over the whole scale. Then the master chanted, "O boy, what dost thou see? Speak!" and he too went over all that the boy had gone over. Then the turn came to the boy, and he chanted, "O master, a spark has fallen on thy turban, and it is burning." The master straightway tore off his turban and cast it on the ground, and saw that it was burning. He blew out the fire on this side and on that, and took it in his hand, and said to the boy, "What time for chanting is this? Everything is good in its own place," and he admonished him.[16]
The other story tells how a king had a stupid son, and placed him in charge of a cunning master, learned in the sciences, who declared it would be easy for him to teach the boy discretion, and, before dismissing him, the king gave the sage many rich gifts. After the boy has been long under the tuition of his learned master, the latter, conceiving him to be well versed in all the sciences, takes him to the king, his father, who says to him, "O my son, were I to hold a certain thing hidden in my hand, couldst thou tell me what it is?" "Yes," answers the youth. Upon this the king secretly slips the ring off his finger, and hides it in his hand, and then asks the boy, "What have I in my hand?" Quoth the clever youth, "O father, it first came from the hills." (The king thinks to himself, "He knows that mines are in the hills.") "And it is a round thing," continues he—"it must be a millstone." "Blockhead!" exclaims the irate king, "could a millstone be hidden in a man's hand?" Then addressing the learned man, "Take him away," he says, "and teach him."
Lastly, we have a somewhat different specimen of the silly son in the doctor's apprentice, whose attempt to imitate his master was so ludicrously unsuccessful. He used to accompany his master on his visits to patients, and one day the doctor said to a sick man, to whom he had been called, "I know what is the matter with you, and it is useless to deny it;—you have been eating beans." On their way home, the apprentice, admiring his master's sagacity, begged to be informed how he knew that the patient had been eating beans. "Boy," said the doctor, loftily, "I drew an inference." "An inference!" echoed this youth of inquiring mind; "and what is an inference?" Quoth the doctor, "Listen: when we came to the door, I observed the shells of beans lying about, and I drew the inference that the family had had beans for dinner." Another day it chanced that the doctor did not take his apprentice with him when he went his rounds, and in his absence a message came for him to visit a person who had been taken suddenly ill. "Here," thought the apprentice, "is a chance for my putting master's last lesson into practice;" so off he went to the sick man, and assuming as "knowing" an air as he could, he felt his pulse, and then said to him severely, "Don't deny it; I see by your pulse that you have been eating a horse. I shall send you some medicine." When the doctor returned home he inquired of his hopeful pupil, whether any person had called for him, upon which the wittol proudly told him of his own exploit. "Eaten a horse!" exclaimed the man of physic. "In the name of all that's wonderful, what induced you to say such a thing?" Quoth the youth, simpering, "Why, sir, I did as you did the other day, when we visited the old farmer—I drew an inference." "You drew an inference, did you? And how did you draw the inference that the man had eaten a horse?" "Why, very readily, sir; for as I entered the house I saw a saddle hanging on the wall."[17]
