Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/146

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FOLK-LORE OF THE HOLY LAND

that girl. She was found, and brought before him.

“O veiled one,”[1] he said, “the red dress which you wore on such a day has cost this carpenter a broken leg, and so you must pay the damages.”

“It was not my fault, but the draper’s,” said the girl. “Because when I went to buy stuff for a dress, he had none but that particular bright red.”

The draper was forthwith summoned. He said it was not his fault, because the English manufacturer had sent him only this bright red material, though he had ordered others.

“What! you dog!” cried Karakash, “do you deal with the heathen?” and he ordered the draper to be hanged from the lintel of his own door. The servants of justice took him and were going to hang him, but he was a tall man and the door of his house was low; so they returned to the Kâdi, who inquired: “Is the dog dead?” They replied, “He is tall, and the door of his house is very low. He will not hang there.”

“Then hang the first short man you can find,” said Karakash.[2]

  1. ↑ Ya mustûrah. Respectable Moslem and Christian townswomen always go about veiled.
  2. ↑ A delightful compound of this and the foregoing story is given as a reading exercise in “A manual of the Spoken Arabic of Egypt,” by J.S. Willmore. It is called “El Harâmi el Mazlûm” (The ill-treated Robber), and the name of Karakash is omitted. It is the funnier from being written in the kind of baby-Arabic spoken by the Egyptain fellahìn.—Ed.
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