SOME CURRENT PERSIAN TALES. 387 



away and hid in an adjoining room. There he remained till the husband went out. 

 The man then went to the husband's shop and narrated all the details of his adventure. 

 The cloth-seller said, " Oh you ! I adjure thee by thy manly moustaches ' to take me with 

 you when you go to-morrow, so that I too may see the fun." The man said, " Certainly, 

 I agree." The next morning he came to the shop and said, "Get up, let us go." 

 Saying this he went on ahead and left the cloth merchant to follow. The lover 

 knocked and entered the house. The woman had now spent all the money she 

 had, so she said to her lover, " You must to-day go into this tank 2 and I will cover 

 your head with a gourd. b I have made some changal * and I and my husband will eat 

 this together. We will make bets and throw the stones at the gourd." The man strip- 

 ped and concealed himself in the water. The husband arrived and knocked at the door. 

 The woman opened and together they entered. 5 The woman then placed the changal 

 in front of her husband and invited him to eat, displaying a thousand feminine airs 

 and graces. She lifted up a date stone and looking at the gourd said, " I'll shoot at 

 that. If I hit it, I'll win ten tumans from you." The man said, " No, I will shoot." 

 The woman said, " Certainly ; but if you do not hit, you'll lose, so look out." The 

 cloth-seller put the stone in his finger 6 and shot. He missed, for the lover could see 

 from inside the gourd, and moved his head aside, so that the stone missed. The husband 

 had three or four shots and the lover made them all miss. 



Having lost forty tumans he left in disgust and went to his shop. The man, the 

 stranger, again went to the shop door of the cloth-seller and said, " I congratulate you. 7 

 I have finished my business for I have received a sum equal to the value of the horse 

 and the cash I lost with it. What a fool of a man is that husband ; he is more foolish 

 than his wife." s The cloth-seller said, " Relate all this before a witness and I will pay 

 you." (You must know that the wife of the cloth-seller was the sister of the Mujtahid 9 

 of that district.) The man replied, " Why not ? " The cloth-seller invited all the 

 learned men and divines, and the local gentry, to meet in the house of a neighbour, and 

 he included in the invitation the Mujtahid who was his brother-in-law, and said to his 

 wife's lover, " Now relate it all." The stranger began to tell the tale. Some one went 

 to the woman and told her that such and such a man was in the house of such and such 

 a neighbour, relating a story about her. The woman put on her chadar and went on 

 the roof and watched the proceedings through a small sky-light. She recognized her 

 lover and saw that he was telling all that had happened and had reached the point 

 where her husband was shooting at the gourd. She had a small mirror in her breast. 



1 A common oath amongst the lower orders. 



The water was probably very green and opaque. 

 3 Perhaps an empty gourd used as a receptacle for rice, etc. 

 * Vide page 404, note II. 



6 i.e , entered the tdldr which would be open to the courtyard and would overlook the tank. 



5 He would place it on the tip of the middle finger of one hand : the finger would then be used as a spring, being pulled 

 back by the other hand and then released suddenly. 

 1 Said ironically. 



5 Women are supposed to be deficient in sense. 

 9 Mujtahid, a divine of high rank. 



