The laughable stories collected by Mâr Gregory John Bar Hebræ

i4
THE LAUGHABLE STORIES OF BAR-HEBR^US.
"Now unless water had been better than oil,
they would
"not have compared it therewith." And when the
traveller heard these words he said, "Verily there hath
"never been in our time a more clever miser than
"thou."
CCCCXL. A certain miser used to rise up during
the night whilst his children were asleep, and if he
saw any of them lying upon his right side he turned
him over upon his left, saying, "[I do this] that the
"food in them may not be too quickly digested, so
"that they may not wake up in the early hours of the
"morning and ask for something to eat before anything
"is ready for them."
CCCCXLI. A certain miser observed that his son
on the window
was wont to take bread and to place it
near which he went out, after which he ate it; and he
asked him why he did so. His son said to him, "I
"can inhale the smell of the baking which cometh out
"from the windows, therefore I set the bread there that
"the steam of the smoking meat may pass through it;
"and then I eat it." Then his father smote him and
said to him, "O son that murmurest, henceforward
"thou shalt be in the habit of eating bread only."
CCCCXLII. A certain miserly woman was wrangling
with a man who was selling flour to her, and she said,
"I have taken from thee a riila'' of flour, and only
"ninety bread-cakes can be made therefrom." The
man said to her, "O woman, whose womanly character
"hath fled, if thou art wont to make every bread-cake
"of the size of a mill-stone, wherein have I offended?"
CCCCXLIII. Another man saw the daughter of a
^ The Arabic JJ^^, a weight of about a pound.