The laughable stories collected by Mâr Gregory John Bar Hebræ

124 THE LAUGHABLE STORIES OF BAR-HEBR^US.
which made his mouth to smell badly, and when he
went to the tooth-drawer and had opened his mouth
and exhaled the foul smell, the handicraftsman said to
him,
"This matter doth not belong to my handicraft buf
"to the trade of those who cleanse the sewers."
CCCCLXXVIII. A certain woman took a kettle with
a hole in it to the blacksmith, and she said to him,
"Mend it for me." And having taken it he smeared a
little clay over and into the hole and blackened it with
soot and gave it back to her. And when the woman
had taken the kettle [home], and had filled it with water
[and set it on the fire], the clay melted away as the
water began to boil. Then straightway she took the
kettle and went back to the blacksmith and said to
him, "What hast thou done? Behold, the kettle is just
"as it was [when I first brought it], and the hole is
"unstopped." The blacksmith said to her, "Perhaps thou
"hast put some water in it? I thought that thou wishedst
"to put bran or herbs into it, bat since it is water that
'thou wouldst put in it get thee to some other crafts-
"man who is more skilled than I am, and let him mend it."
saw
CCCCLXXIX. Another man who was a sailor,
a man riding a horse, and noticed that he worked his
legs as he did so; and he said, "Glory be to Thee,
"O God, the legs of this man are his rudders!"
CCCCLXXX. Another man was gathering up dung
[for fuel] and he said, "How beautiful is that which
"David' saith,
Man in his honour hath no understanding,
"but resembleth the beast and is like thereunto." And
when a certain rich man heard him he said unto him,
"What now, is this honour of thine whereby thou hast
'
Psalm xlix. 20.