On Sunday the priest tells the congregation
to sit down, which they do accordingly. Then says he,
"Why are ye not all seated?" Say they, "We _are_ all
seated." "Nay," quoth Mass John, "but he that stole the
goose sitteth not down." "But I _am_ seated," says the
witless goose-thief.
We learn from the Old Testament that the Queen of Sheba (or Saba, whom
the Arabians identify with Bilkis, queen of El-Yemen) "came to prove the
wisdom of Solomon with hard questions," and that he answered them all.
What were the questions--or riddles--the solution of which so much
astonished the Queen of Sheba we are not told; but the Rabbis inform us
that, after she had exhausted her budget of riddles, she one day
presented herself at the foot of Solomon's throne, holding in one hand a
bouquet of natural flowers and in the other a bouquet of artificial
flowers, desiring the king to say which was the product of nature. Now,
the artificial flowers were so exactly modelled in imitation of the
others that it was thought impossible for him to answer the question,
from the distance at which she held the bouquets. But Solomon was not to
be baffled by a woman with scraps of painted paper: he caused a window
in the audience-chamber to be opened, when a cluster of bees immediately
flew in and alighted upon one of the bouquets, while not one of the
insects fixed upon the other.
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