'Eaten it, spoiled it, and given it away,' answered Tawny-hide; 'they
always do so,'

'And this without your Majesty's sanction?' asked the Bull.

'Oh! certainly not with my sanction,' said the King.

'Then,' exclaimed the Bull, 'it is too bad: and in Ministers too!--

'Narrow-necked to let out little, big of belly to keep much,
As a flagon is--the Vizir of a Sultan should be such.'

'No wealth will stand such waste, your Majesty--

'He who thinks a minute little, like a fool misuses more;
He who counts a cowry nothing, being wealthy, will be poor.'

'A king's treasury, my liege, is the king's life.'

'Good brother,' observed Stiff-ears, who had heard what the Bull said,
'these Jackals are your Ministers of Home and Foreign Affairs--they
should not have direction of the Treasury. They are old servants, too,
and you know the saying--

'Brahmans, soldiers, these and kinsmen--of the three set none in
charge:
For the Brahman, tho' you rack him, yields no treasure small or large;
And the soldier, being trusted, writes his quittance with his sword,
And the kinsman cheats his kindred by the charter of the word;
But a servant old in service, worse than any one is thought,