" "A mischief on
your eyes!" cried the second dervish, "for her needle has this moment
dropped from her hand, and I hear it sound upon the pavement below her
window." "Sir," said the third dervish, addressing the captain, "shall
I, or shall I not, be an unbeliever?" Quoth the captain: "Come, friend,
come with me into my cabin, and let us cultivate unbelief together!"
* * * * *
A very droll parrot story occurs--where, indeed, we should least expect
to meet with such a thing--in the _Masnavi_ of Jelalu-'d-Din er-Rumi
(13th century), a grand mystical poem, or rather series of poems, in six
books, written in Persian rhymed couplets, as the title indicates. In
the second poem of the First Book we read that an oilman possessed a
fine parrot, who amused him with her prattle and watched his shop during
his absence. It chanced one day, when the oilman had gone out, that a
cat ran into the shop in chase of a mouse, which so frightened the
parrot that she flew about from shelf to shelf, upsetting several jars
and spilling their contents. When her master returned and saw the havoc
made among his goods he fetched the parrot a blow that knocked out all
her head feathers, and from that day she sulked on her perch. The
oilman, missing the prattle of his favourite, began to shower his alms
on every passing beggar, in hopes that some one would induce the parrot
to speak again.
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