"D'ye think I can't hear?"--Two Eastern stories I have met
with are most diverting examples of this peculiarity of deaf folks. One
is related by my friend Pandit Natesa Sastri in his _Folk-Lore of
Southern India_, of which a few copies were recently issued at
Bombay.[29] A deaf man was sitting one day where three roads crossed,
when a neatherd happened to pass that way. He had lately lost a good cow
and a calf, and had been seeking them some days. When he saw the deaf
man sitting by the way he took him for a soothsayer, and asked him to
find out by his knowledge of magic where the cow would likely be found.
The herdsman was also very deaf, and the other, without hearing what he
had said, abused him, and said he wished to be left undisturbed, at the
same time stretching out his hand and pointing at his face. This
pointing the herd supposed to indicate the direction where the lost cow
and calf should be sought; thus thinking (for he, too, had not heard a
word of what the other man had said to him), the herd went off in
search, resolving to present the soothsayer with the calf if he found it
with the cow. To his joy, and by mere chance, of course, he found them
both, and, returning with them to the deaf man (still sitting by the
wayside), he pointed to the calf and asked him to accept of it.
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