held him by the gown and continued to urge him, saying,
"You told me when I should fall from the tree, and it came to pass to
the moment. Tell me now how long I have to live." And as he would not
release him, but kept crying, "How much time have I left?" the man lost
patience, and said, "O fool! there is no more time left to thee. The
days of the years of thy life are numbered."

"Then I am dead, lo I am dead!" said the Khoja, and he lay down, and
stiffened himself, and did not move.

By and by his neighbours came and stood at his head, and having observed
him, they brought a bier and laid him on it, saying, "Let us take him to
his own house."

Now in the way thither there was in the road a boggy place, which it was
difficult to pass, and the bearers of the bier stood still and
consulted, saying, "Which way shall we go?"

And they hesitated so long that the Khoja, becoming impatient, raised
his head from the bier, and said, "_That's_ the way I used to go myself,
when I was alive."

_Tale_ 26.--The Two Moons.

On a certain day when the Khoja went to Sur-Hissar he saw a group of
persons looking at the new moon.

"What extraordinary people the men of this place must be!" said he, "In
our country the moon may be seen as large as a plate, and no one
troubles his head about it, and here people stare at it when it is only
a quarter the size."

_Tale_ 27.--The Khoja Preaching.

One of the Khoja's duties--as a religious teacher--was to preach to the
people. But once upon a time he became very lazy about this, and was
always seeking an excuse to shorten or omit his sermons.

On a certain day about this time he mounted into the pulpit, and looking
down on the congregation assembled to listen to him, he stretched forth
his hands and cried, "Ah, Believers! what shall I say to you?"

And the men beat upon their breasts, and replied with one voice, "We do
not know, most holy Khoja! we do not know."

"Oh, if you don't know--" said the Khoja indignantly, and gathering his
robe about him, he quitted the pulpit without another word.

The men looked at each other in dismay, for the Khoja was a very
popular preacher.

[Illustration: THE KHOJA PREACHES.]

"We have done wrong," said they, "though we know not how; without doubt
our ignorance is an offence to his learning. Wherefore, if he comes
again, whatever he says to us we will seem as if we knew all about it."

The following week the Khoja got again into the pulpi