VII

I overheard a sage, who was remarking: "Never has anybody acknowledged
his own ignorance, excepting that person who, while another may be
talking, and has not finished what he has to say, will begin
speaking:--A speech, O wiseacre! has a beginning and an end; bring not
one speech into the middle of another. A man of judgment, discretion,
and prudence, delivers not his speech till he find an interval of
silence."


VIII

Some of the courtiers of Sultan Mahmud asked Husan Maimandi, saying:
"What did the king whisper to you to-day on a certain state affair?" He
said: "You are also acquainted with it." They replied: "You are the
prime minister; what the king tells you, he does not think proper to
communicate to such as we are." He replied: "He communicates with me in
the confidence that I will not divulge to anybody; then why do you ask
me?" A man of sense blabs not, whatever he may come to know; he should
not make his own head the forfeit of the king's secret.


IX

I was hesitating about the purchase of a dwelling-house. A Jew said: "I
am an old housekeeper in this street: ask the character of this house
from me and buy it, for it has no fault." I replied: "True! only that
you are its neighbor:--Any such house as has thee for its neighbor could