The Story of the Kazi and his Slipper.



Once upon a time, O King of the Age, I had a slipper which hardly
belonged to its kind nor ever was there seen a bigger. Now one
day of the days I waxed aweary of it and sware to myself that I
would never wear it any more; so in mine anger I flung it away
and it fortuned to fall upon the flat roof of a Khwajah's house
where the stucco was weakest. Thence it dropped through, striking
a shelf that held a number of phials full of the purest
rose-water and the boarding yielded breaking all the bottles and
spilling their contents. The house-folk heard the breakage
ringing and rattling; so they crowded one after other to discover
what had done the damage and at last they found my papoosh
sprawling amiddlemost the room. Then they made sure that the
shelf had not been broken except by the violence of that slipper,
and they examined it when, behold, the house-master cried,
saying, "This be the papoosh of Abu Kasim the Drummer." Hereupon
he took it and carried it to the Governor who summoned me and set
me before him; then he made me responsible for the phials and
whatso was therein and for the repairing of the terrace-roof and
upraising it again. And lastly he handed to me the slipper which
was exceedingly long and broad and heavy and, being cruel old it
showed upwards of an hundred and thirty patches nor was it
unknown to any of the villagers. So I took it and fared forth
and, being anangered with the article, I resolved to throw it