And we seem to have a
trace of them in the story of the pedant who dreamt that a nail had
pierced his foot, and in the morning he bound it up; when he told a
friend of his mishap, he said, "Why do you sleep barefooted?"
The following jest is spread--_mutatis mutandis_--over all Europe:
A pedant, a bald man, and a barber, making a journey in company, agreed
to watch in turn during the night. It was the barber's watch first. He
propped up the sleeping pedant, and shaved his head, and when his time
came, awoke him. When the pedant felt his head bare, "What a fool is
this barber," he cried, "for he has roused the bald man instead of me!"
A variant of this story is related of a raw Highlander, fresh from the
heather, who put up at an inn in Perth, and shared his bed with a negro.
Some coffee-room jokers having blackened his face during the night, when
he was called, as he had desired, very early next morning, and got up,
he saw the reflection of his face in the mirror, and exclaimed in a
rage, "Tuts, tuts! The silly body has waukened the wrang man."
In connection with these two stories may be cited the following, from a
Persian jest-book: A poor wrestler, who had passed all his life in
forests, resolved to try his fortune in a great city, and as he drew
near it he observed with wonder the crowds on the road, and thought, "I
shall certainly not be able to know myself among so many people if I
have not something about me that the others have not.
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