e story of how I
acquired this river; but I insist that you are mine."

Juan persisted so strongly, that at last the princess said that she
was willing to leave the matter to her father's decision. On hearing
Juan's story, and after having asked him question after question,
the king was greatly impressed with his wonderful reasoning and wit;
and, as he was unable to offer any refutation for Juan's argument,
he willingly married his daughter to Juan.

Notes.

I know of no complete analogues of this droll; but partial variants,
both serious and comic, are numerous. In our story a penniless,
unscrupulous hero finds a centavo, and by means of sophistical
arguments with foolish persons makes more and more profitable
exchanges until he wins the hand of a princess. A serious tale of a
clever person starting with no greater capital than a dead mouse, and
finally succeeding in making a fortune, is the "Cullaka-setthi-jataka,"
No. 4. This story subsequently made its way into Somadeva's great
collection (Tawney, 1 : 33-34), "The Story of the Mouse Merchant"
(ch. VI). Here it runs approximately as follows:--

A poor youth, whose mother managed to give him some education in
writing and ciphering, was advised by her to go to a certain rich
merchant who was in the habit of lending capital to poor men of good
family. The youth went; and, just as he entered the house, that rich
man was angrily talking to another merchant's son: "You see this dead
mouse here upon the floor; even that is a commodity by which a capable
man would acquire wealth; but I gave you, you good-for-nothing fellow,
many dinars, and, so far from increasing them, you have not even been
able to preserve what you got." The poor stranger-youth at once said
to the merchant that he would take the dead mouse as capital advanced,
and he wrote a receipt for it. He sold the mouse as cat-meat to a
certain merchant for two handfuls of gram. Next he made meal of the
gram, and, taking his stand by the road, civilly offered food and
drink to a band of wood-cutters that came by. Each, out of gratitude,
gave him two pieces of wood. This wood he sold, bought more gram with
a part of the price, and obtained more wood from the wood-cutters the
next day, etc., until he was able in time to buy all their wood for
three days. Heavy rains made a dearth of wood, and he sold his stock
for a large sum. Then he set up a shop, began to traffic, and became
wealthy by his own ability. Now he