I went down, and I shook it as a signal and they haled me up till I had well-nigh reached the kerbstone of the well when a fit of sneezing seized me and I sneezed violently.  At this all let go their hold and carrying their arms over their breasts, cried aloud, “Allah have ruth upon thee, O our lord!” but I, as soon as they loosed hold, fell into the depths of the well and brake my back.  I shrieked for excess of agony and all the boys ran on all sides screaming for aid till they were heard by some wayfaring folk; and these haled at me and drew me out.  They placed me upon the ass and bore me home:  then they brought a leach to medicine me and at last I became even as thou seest me, O Sultan of the Age.  Such, then, is my story showing the weakness of my wits; for had I not enjoined and enforced over-respect the boys would not have let go their hold when I happened to sneeze nor would my back have been broken.  “Thou speakest sooth, O Shaykh,” said the Sultan, “and indeed thou hast made evident the weakness of thy wit.”  Then quoth he to the man who was cloven of mouth.  “And thou, the other, what was it split thy gape?” “The weakness of my wit, O my lord the Sultan,” quoth he, and fell to telling the

Story of the Split-Mouthed Schoolmaster.[FN#137]

I also began life, O King of the Age, as a Schoolmaster and had under my charge some eighty boys.  Now I was strict with such strictness that from morning to evening I sat amongst them and would never dismiss them to their homes before sundown.  But ’tis known to thee, O our lord the King, that boys’ wits be short after the measure of their age, and that they love naught save play and forgathering in the streets and quarter.  Withal, I took no heed of this and ever grew harder upon them till one day all met and with the intervention of the eldest Monitor they agreed and combined to play me a trick.  He arranged with them that next morning none should enter the school until he had taught them, each and every, to say as they went in, “Thy safety, O our lord, how yellow is thy face!” Now the first who showed himself was the Monitor and he spoke as had been agreed; but I was rough with him and sent him away; then a second came in and repeated what the first had said; then a third and then a fourth, until ten boys had used the same words.  So quoth I to myself, “Ho, Such-an-one! thou must be unwell without weeting it:”  then I arose and went into the Harem and lay down therein when the Monitor, having collected from his school-fellows some hundred-and-eighty Nusfs,[FN#138] came in to me and cried, “Take this, O our lord, and expend the money upon thy health.”  Thereupon I said to myself, “Ho, Such-an-one! every Thursday[FN#139] thou dost not collect sixty Faddahs from the boys,” and I cried to him, “Go, let them forth for a holiday.”  So he went and dismissed them from school to the playground.  On the next day he collected as much as on the first